How many Chinese characters do you need to know? (to READ Chinese)
ABChinese ABChinese
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 Published On Feb 10, 2023

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✍️ I'm a native speaker who learned to read Chinese later in life. Here's what you'll be able to read at each milestone, from 100 characters to 2500 and beyond. (based on my experience:) How many characters do you need to read Chinese?

📍TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 || Why I'm making this video
1:06 || 100~500 characters
1:50 || The Magic Number
3:07 || 1000 characters + italki
5:53 || 1500~3500 characters
8:34 || BUT, there's a catch...
10:34 || Learning curves of characters vs words

Learn about the difference between characters and words in Chinese!
▶️ Why Chinese HATES 1 Syllable Words:    • Why Chinese HATES 1 Syllable Words  
▶️ Why is Chinese OBSESSED with 2 Syllable Words?:    • Why is Chinese OBSESSED w/ 2 Syllable...  
▶️ Why Chinese Verbs NEED an Object:    • Why Chinese Verbs NEED an Object (som...  

⚠️ NOTES:
1) I consider HSK 6 to be equivalent to native 3rd grade. The content is different though. An adult at HSK 6 would function better in society, but wouldn't know all the literature that the 3rd grader knows. Yes, in China, they read ancient poems from even 1st grade.
2) You may have noticed the native speaker's curve moves sharply up after 2000 characters (11:55). This reflects the large amounts of vocabulary (words) that students learn in late elementary school through high school. By second grade, students are already expected to know 1600 characters, but by the end of 6th grade, that number only goes up to 3000, and to just over 3500 by high school graduation.

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