These examples illustrate cases where multiple characters constitute one word. This can get a little uncertain sometimes. Consider the case of \u4e2d\u56fd\u4eba (zh\u014dnggu\u00f3r\u00e9n, Chinese person). Is it a single word, or is it two? It\u2019s hard to say. This means that when someone sets out to count the number of Chinese words, there are some decisions that need to be made about what counts and what doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In any event, it\u2019s useful to make this distinction clear before talking about the estimates of how many words and characters there are in the Chinese language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most estimates say that modern Chinese has about 100,000 words which are made from various combinations of around 7,000 characters. For comparison, the Oxford English Dictionary has about 170,000 words and English has 26 standard letters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, you may hear people say that these numbers are far too low, and that in fact it\u2019s more like 350,000 words and 50,000 characters. Don\u2019t worry though, because all of those extra words and characters are not something you are ever going to have to worry about. They are mostly historical characters or words that are not used or even recognized by modern day Chinese speakers. (Imagine if we included all words ever used in an English document in all of history. The resulting number of words is somewhere near a million.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you\u2019re learning Chinese, you absolutely do not need to learn all of those words and all of those characters! Consider that you don\u2019t know all of the words in English; you also don\u2019t need to know all of the words in Chinese, no matter how lofty your language goals are. And of course, how much you need to know depends on the objective of your Chinese studying. (More on that in a minute.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n As mentioned already, Chinese characters and Chinese words are not the same thing, you don\u2019t necessarily need to learn a new character every time you learn a new word. Once you\u2019ve got \u6cd5\u56fd (f\u01cegu\u00f3, France) and \u5f8b\u5e08 (l\u01dcsh\u012b, lawyer) under your belt, \u6cd5\u5f8b (f\u01cel\u01dc, law) is no problem! So vocabulary acquisition can accelerate as you learn more characters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the other hand, the flip side of characters-are-not-words is that knowing the characters on their own isn\u2019t enough. You might know \u77e5\u9053 (zh\u012bdao, know) and \u5730\u65b9 (d\u00ecfang, place) without understanding what \u5730\u9053 (d\u00ecdao, authentic) means. So, you still need to learn each word, even if you know the characters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, how far you go with Chinese depends on you and your own goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For this, let\u2019s turn to the HSK levels. The makers of the Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi, or HSK, have expectations for how many words and characters a test-taker will know in order to pass the test. They also tell us what they expect a certain level test-taker will be able to do using their Chinese. Let\u2019s look at HSK level 3 and level 6 as examples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The HSK 3 test is designed for learners who have mastered about 600 words and about the same number of characters. These learners can use Chinese to deal with very common situations in everyday life or travel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n HSK 6 is geared towards learners who have mastered about 5,000 words and about 2,600 characters. These learners can have in-depth conversations about a variety of topics and can read any normal publication (news articles, social media posts, novels; maybe not a graduate thesis) without difficulty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can find more information about other HSK levels here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are some online evaluations that estimate how many Chinese characters\/words you know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For a Chinese character test, go to this link<\/a>. When you get there, choose Simplified or Traditional and then select all of the characters that you know. Don\u2019t cheat!<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/images.unsplash.com\/photo-1545038522-9bb451739ab9?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&ixid=MnwxMjA3fDB8MHxwaG90by1wYWdlfHx8fGVufDB8fHx8&auto=format&fit=crop&w=870&q=80\")
So how many words\/characters are there?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Now the good news<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/images.unsplash.com\/photo-1616564826355-b0021c684dc8?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&ixid=MnwxMjA3fDB8MHxwaG90by1wYWdlfHx8fGVufDB8fHx8&auto=format&fit=crop&w=870&q=80\")
How many words\/characters do I need to learn?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/images.unsplash.com\/photo-1544776193-32d404ae608a?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&ixid=MnwxMjA3fDB8MHxwaG90by1wYWdlfHx8fGVufDB8fHx8&auto=format&fit=crop&w=1029&q=80\")
How many words\/characters do I already know?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n