20 characters/day is a very aggressive pace that quickly becomes unsustainable, because after a few weeks you'll start forgetting faster than you learn. 5-8 characters/day is more realistic. It also becomes more slow and difficult at around the HSK5/6 level because the new characters you learn at those levels are used much less frequently than HSK 1/2/3 characters, which means they aren't reinforced as often when you read or listen to Chinese.
Agreed. I learn 5 new traditional characters per day by writing them down once (including pinyin and English meaning) then I make up a sentence in my head with the new word, and then re-write the previous 2 days of characters (reviewing 10). This works fantastic for me and although not all words are perfectly cemented in my memory, when I move to Taipei I’m sure the training will help greatly and the words will come back quickly.
Yes and only learn charachter i think is usless without context and pronunch and also recognize them in speach. I reached about 300 i think its pretty correct im finnish like the HSK 2 level online. Feel its gets easier the more you learned
很好！ Nice! Nearly a month for me. And I'm at about 80 to 90. Seems like I need to step up my game. :D But it's kinda hard to study chinese, while the final exams for engineering are coming up in a few weeks.
I started to learn 2017. I got Hsk-3 in October 2019. So far I'm stuck in my level. 6 months to get Hsk-6, no way... Unless you go and live in China and do nothing but studying Mandarin.. My friend went to Normal Universoty 2015, and learned intensive Mandarin for 8 months, only got Hsk-4...
After about five months of learning through videos and worksheets, my estimated number of recognized characters is 130. I study a few hours most days, so I think this is good progress. Whiteboard and markers save a lot on paper!
Some awesome soul just liked this comment on the day I completed 100 hours of studying Mandarin and redid the test (140 now!) My focus has been mainly the sounds of the language so all my characters have really just been incidental 😄
Even the college entrance exam requires 3,500 commonly used characters. Many characters are only used in ancient literacy, and if you don't research ancient Chinese, in no case could you meet them.
I have been studying Chinese for a year, self study along with my school stuff. I am still at HSK 3 with 670 characters. My reading is good, I have to practice with my writing, my typing and basic format of the sentences are also good. My listening comprehension sucks though, so I have a lot to improve. My pace is quite slow, but I am happy with the things I've learned cause I never place a lot of effort in something like this..
I learn 5 or 6 characters per day and try to use them in a sentence. I also watch a lot of chinese drama and try to recognise the characters that I have learned in the subtitle given below along with the pronounciation. In this way, I neve forget the charcters I have learned and it works for me. But I don't know about others because everyone has their own way. 😊
What a huge difference in the average number a native speaker knows when searched on the English platform vs the Chinese platform. I think I am more inclined to believe the Chinese platform. I moved to mainland China when I got married (my husband is from mainland China). I remember my husband telling me the average person knows probably between 2500 to 3500 and university students about 1500 to 2000 more than the average non-university educated. The Chinese search is right on par with what he was telling me. It may seem daunting and impossible, and people always say that there are too many characters. I would just like to point out that the English language has 171,146 words currently in use, which does not include 47,156 obsolete words (which you may still find in literature or historical TV Shows or Films). The average native English speaker knows about 20,000 words and university-educated native speakers about 40,000 words. So it may seem daunting, but I am positive with consistent studying, I can reach HSK9 and beyond as well as anyone else who wants to learn Chinese (whatever Their personal goal is). My goal is to learn as much as I can.
@@soomiewleng5227 I wouldn't be surprised with the rise of education that the number is actually higher. In fact there new HSK is 9 levels and 11,092, which is a massive leap from previous.
@@soomiewleng5227 the official new HSK is 9 levels with 11,092 words/characters. It's supposed to go into effect this year, but they haven't given a date on when exactly that is. It sure would help to know for those studying though to know what date it goes into effect. It seems incredibly daunting, but I'm trying to stay positive about the 11,092 characters.
i did think before that even if the benchmark is not strict as long as people are willing to learn we shouldn't discourage them. i just learned from comments that the hsk is now so tough....
Characters are not necessarily words. For instance, 故事 (story) if turned around is 事故 (accident). Also 故 and 事 can also be used independently. Thus two characters can be 4 words. This is one reason why Chinese can be so difficult. Unfortunately, the HKS system does not consider these kinds of variables. One can know 4000 characters but not understand how to make words with them or know how to use them in sentences (ie word collocation).
I consider it a plus, in English you have to memorize two completely different words, "story" and "accident", but in Chinese with only two characters you know four words in total. For example I learned the words 生 and 日, and using these two words I was able to guess that 生日 means birthday, three words in two symbols
8000 is way too high for an average number. My result is 7200, and I’m a native speaker who knows a lot about the history of Chinese language and I read a lot on ancient Chinese literature. I consider myself knowing the language much better than any other Chinese speakers around me.
20 - 023 Angela Rehita Noventiara One tip for learning pronunciation: learn International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), I mean the full set, not the subset of a particular language. There are interactive IPA charts online showing how each phoneme sounds like. Use that to practice all sorts of sounds in human languages. Another tip for memorizing vocabulary: use words frequency list, and start from the most common words. The 3000 most common words of any language shall have a good coverage of potential utterances the language can generate. An additional tip is that don’t rely too much on the examples in textbooks. Those examples are tailored heavily for language learning purpose, and thus can sound unnatural to native ears. Examples in dictionaries would be better, but the best examples have to come from materials of how native speakers actually use the language. Many major languages have good corpora, which are databases of text materials collected from daily uses for linguistic research-these things are rich ores you can tap.
Full attention - do not disturb by most possible Concentration - attending n listening to a talks/ shows Purpose - complete our daily jobs day by day Confident - giving presentation / speech Friendship - meeting Clients Inclusion - be part of the big company family members Diversity - free style Respect - interview / promotion / meet big boss Insight - working on a projects hope to get more ideas ... Etc
Oh, i can read the words (characters) of hsk 3. It isnt as hard as it seems. just repeat looking at them every day and soon you get it. No memory tricks or else were necessary
I really recommend using characters or at least pinyin when you write in chinese, if using phone you can add a keyboard to your phone where you type the pinyin and the characters show up, it's what I use. When you type it like that it's very unclear what it means(in your case it's possible to figure out as it's a short phrase that is taught to many beginners), even with pinyin it's still harder, as many characters share the same pinyin.
I am half way through an HSK 5 course. I have read a Chinese novel. And I scored . . . 260. OK, so where is that balcony? I don’t suppose it helps to say I am dyslexic in every language I know. Never mind, I’ll continue working on comprehension of spoken language before I worry too much about characters.
I am still in the beginning of HSK 4 and I was estimated to know 400 characters. But oc we know many more than what the website said... Just in HSK vocabulary it is already more.
@@victoriadecastro8334 Yes. Sadly, I am dyslexic. I find it very hard to read characters with no context. I am concentrating on listening and speaking. Reading and writing are skills I acquire after learning to listen and speak - as I did in my native language and every other language I know.
@@transmathematica I took the test and got 1100 the first time then 1000 the second time (embarrassing). And I passed hsk 4 with excellent result and scared to take hsk5.. damn.. and yeah, your dislexia might affect your test.
Hey it is okay! I want to learn Chinese and I barely know any characters, and the ones I do kinda know, I barely remember their symbols. If you are halfway through an HSK 5 course, that is amazing, regardless of whatever number this test thing gives you. Dyslexia is not fun, but you can push through it mate. I don't have dyslexia but I have a bit of a reading issue myself, likely from OCD, but I am pushing through it, and you can push through your dyslexia too my friend, no matter how hard, just keep going! Stay strong, positive, and just keep going, and just keep learning! You got this my friend! I am here for you if you need anything! 💪❤️
Fun video, thanks Shuo. Don't jump! Most native English speakers also recognise only a minority of words in a non-concise dictionary. You also just demonstrated that bilingual dictionaries can't always be trusted; bookish and genteel are not synonyms and a ladle is a type of large spoon used for serving food. If I may give you a tip, be careful with the word order for direct and indirect questions in English e.g. How many Chinese characters can you recognise? vs Would you like to find out how many Chinese characters you can recognise? Also you got caught out by a pesky auxiliary verb (do) e.g. Test how many Chinese characters you know vs How many Chinese characters do you know? Answer for me is apparently 500. Maybe can be 510 in a day or two!
funny as ever; you are really a gifted communicator. keep in mind that there are wrong entries in all kinds of dictionaries, printed or electronic. and "ladle" is not (quite) a spoon but a large spoon used by cooks, chefs (and yes, your mom; when she ladles the soup to each of you kids).
2000~3000 middle school level 6000~8000 High school level and this can be the highest level for most Chinese student, cause we won't force to learn Chinese anymore in university. and 10000+ only Chinese major students.
Why do people complain about your intro? Almost every youtuber has something they keep saying in the beginning of their videos and I love hearing yours! ♥ I got estimate of 200 characters, ouch. I passed HSK 2 with ease in 2019, but I guess I need to study harder~
loved your video. too funny. If I could remember all characters I study in a day I could take 130 days to learn Chinese. But when tomorrow comes I forget what I learned yesterday.
Great video, as usual. I am ashamed that I only got a score of 200 after trying to learn since around 1 BC. (Before Corona), I guess there could be something wrong with that site, or have I been fooling myself?...you don't need to answer that. :) Now I will watch all of your videos again and see if my brains start filling up the gaps over the next 130 days. I hope the native Chinese speaker of Chinese living in Bangkok Thailand has done her math right. I will report back in 130 days. Love your videos!
I got 300 characters and I'm pretty happy about it, since I'm now finishing my studies for HSK 2. I think this shows I have kind of a solid base to start my intermediate studies and I am confident that I'll get to HSK 4 or even HSK 5 level in the following years :)))) And, Shuo, you're a big part of that journey. Thank you for your amazing videos! They always get me interested and motivated to keep studying Mandarin
Hi Shuo, I've taken this test and according to the characters I can recognize, the app says 400. The situation I see is that the problem is not how many characters do you know, but how you use them to create meaningful sentences and how and if you are able to understand those characters in the middle of some text... It's like learning english by memorizing words but not having a clue how to conect them to create phrases... Thank you for sharing your knowledge!!
I've tried this test and I got 2800.. somehow I'm impressed, because I'm learning Mandarin around 2.5 years :D That just made my day, thank you 老师！haha
You are amazing! I love your videos, they are useful and entertaining at the same time. What I love the most is that there is a lot of intermediate level content on your channel and I find this level the most difficult to find appropriate materials for. Btw I got 1500 characters, even though I forgot a lot for the past year
I would like to know 2 thinks: 1 - How do you know the correct way to pronounce a new Chinese character when you see it? (Pretend that there is no tool like Google translator to pronounce it to you). 2 - How are Chinese dictionaries organized so one could search for words definition. I believe that now a days it is possible to search words meaning using pinyin but how was it made in the past? I mean, prior the pinyin was invented. Thanks.
Western dictionaries all follow the alphabetical order of ordering and the way to pronounce words is given directly by the way they are written. I would like to understand how the Chinese managed to consult the dictionary and how they discovered the pronunciation of words in the past (for example, in the 18th century), when there was no pinyin (as far as I know) or computers. I hope I managed to explain myself (English is not my native language) Thank you.
I took it like 4 times, cause my internet is shit and wasn't sure I got all there is. Is it really only two steps and then the result? I got 1800, which makes me kind of sad I should go back to study!
I did it twice, got 200 first time and 400 second time. I think it isn't that big of a difference considering my level is somewhere between HSK2 and HSK3 anyway.
If I follow their definition of "knowing", I get 300. If I include the characters I know at least one meaning for, but don't know how to pronounce, the number jumps up to 1000. That puts my reading ability two full HSK levels above my auditory skills, which sounds about right.
same I got 600, but I know more, I just don't always know how to pronunce them bc I mainly learned characters through other languages (Japanese and Korean Hanjas)
Hey Shuo! I’ve been following for a while because (Mandarin) Chinese is fascinating and you’re interesting to watch. I just wanted to help you out - question words only invert the subject and verb if the phrase itself is a question. So, when you say “I will tell you how many characters can Chinese people read”, it should be “...how many characters Chinese people can read”. 我不太会中文。多的年前我学习一点的中文和今天我仍然会读一点的汉字。来自英国的问候。
I took my HSK5, currently working on my HSk6.. the problem is not learning the characters, the problem is confusing the characters.. when you have 10 Jing which look similar only different because of some radical on the top left... I find it much easier to recognize characters in a sentence than by themselves... So learning 2600 characters is easy, telling them apart by meaning and tone is the hard part.
王八：Cuckold - A man who's wife sleeps around behind his back. Your search (in Chinese) for # of 汉子 average Chinese know is the same as what I've read. So knowing 6,000 is a lot!
@@ShuoshuoChinese people like to see their own believes confirmed and as a result overlook information that indicates they are wrong. This phenomenon is called "confirmation bias". I don't understand why he is talking about it though
Watched it & laughed how funny she was when she thought she knew some vocab words but those words turned out to have different meaning compared to what's written in the dict 😂 I remember my native Chinese teacher made a mistake of mispronouncing a word with a different tone that it should have been, then I realised how human that was and somehow it told me that it's okay not to be okay (hehe 😂) in the middle of my struggle of learning Mandarin..
myself who learning mandarin and japanese, sometimes I forget how a kanji read in mandarin I get about 200 characters in hanzi, and i open a kanji test site, and I get about 360 characters
According to the test after taking it several times somewhere around 900, always being charitable at some instances with remembering the right tone or the exact meaning, so having some more to learn for my next goal of the HSK4-level. Thanks a lot for sharing!
I've been learning Chinese on and off for about 3 years now. (Mostly off though) and I only know maybe 200 characters. I feel better seeing you, a native Chinese speaker struggling.
Did it three times got 2500, 2300 and 2500 again, but I was being generous with the tones and I've been at this for 11 years. I'm gonna keep playing this is fun!
Nice that you tried the test three times. Your scores are remarkably stable (what is called high reliability in testing theory). I wonder what the testing effect is in this test, however. In other words, if someone takes the test more than once, does the score rise, not because of added learning, but as a result of becoming more test wise, or seeing many of the same words as before? I suppose that the items are presented randomly, based on sampling from different levvels of difficulty -- we would need to see the algorithm for this, I guess.
@@denniskeefe1979 It looked like the site uses a sample set of characters to generate the test, not the full set of characters. If I remember correctly this is actually explained somewhere in the website. Although it seemed the set was quite large I did start to notice repeated characters in the "medium difficulty" level which over many turns would surely lead to an inaccurate score. The test gave us three levels of characters, easy, medium and hard, when Shuo played she struggled with characters in the hard section at the end. For myself the characters in the middle were the most challenging while the final ones were completely new.
I love the Fact you Live In Thailand, That is so Cool and Intimate... In Your Defense, When I lived in China for 8 Months, The People I lived with admitted to not knowing a Ton of Characters!!! They also said they Did not know hardly any of the "Old" or Traditional Ones!!!
English isn't my native language but I'm pretty sure that a ladle usually is not the same as a spoon. A ladle is what you would use to scoop soup from a pot into a bowl while a spoon is the device used to eat the soup. Guessing that may also be the difference between 杓 and 勺. (?)
U mean traditional Chinese characters? of course,Hongkong speak Cantonese, not Mandarin Taiwanese speak Mandarin and use traditional characters, similar to Japan Kanji if U learn Manarin in China mainland. its so different
My result is 1300 characters. I took the traditional characters test, because I mostly study them (I had Taiwanese teachers and textbooks). I'm quite satisfied, thought it would be worse :P
@@silentwilly2983 yeah it's the same with me i can write only the very basic ones but i can read so many😂 I guess it is because i didn't practice enough and just memorized them from seeing them often...
I'm a native speaker and I got 5800 on simplified characters 5000 on traditional and I'm from Taiwan. No wonder I failed my Chinese exam at school as a lot of characters appear in school test and I have no idea how to read it.
8k? Someone "fat fingered" that info. Slang for mistyped words or numbers on keypads. They should have caught it before posting it, though. Love your format. Fun, interactive...-ish, informative, comfortable, casual conversational flow, and, of course, educational. Thank you for the video. 😇😎😇
Because this video is about vocabulary and the presenter knows 6000 characters, maybe one could try a quick survey about something: Could it be that a word that ends with a falling and rising tone, for example, 朋友 - pung you, meaning, friend, has a suggestion that there may be some kind of doubt? Could that be disproved with reference to words with the same tone? In English, people may use a different tone for a different intention. For example, one may say, 'He/she is my friend', ending on a high tone. That sounds like a positive declaration. One might say, "I'm not sure, maybe he/she is my friend," ending with the falling and rising tone. English speakers and Chinese speakers have difficulty with tones in the other language. I see that the falling and rising tone is called, simply, the rising tone. Also there is more variation in tones than I knew. At Wikipedia, Four tones (Middle Chinese) I found this quote: "The 上, or "rising" tone, arose from the loss of glottal stops at the end of words. Support for this can be seen in Buddhist transcriptions of the Han period, where the "rising" tone was often used to note Sanskrit short vowels, and also in loans of words with final [q] in the source language, which were borrowed into Chinese as shang tone." Could it be that the rising tone indicates a traditional hesitancy with a word as though people might have felt unsure about the precise usage? But then, 我, meaning 'I', has that tone. Would a person be unsure about that? Possibly, if among Chinese people it is considered impolite to use it excessively. When I entered Tibet from Nepal a long time ago, right by the customs post there was a beautiful, yellow bush of the rose family, with butterflies dancing around it. I was looking at it for some time. A vehicle drove by and someone shouted at me, what I heard as, Du fou!. It sounded like French, with the first word more like German. Years later, I learned what they might have meant. It was because of the poet, 杜甫 and here is a quote from one of his poems: At Madame Huang's house, blossoms fill the paths: Thousands, tens of thousands haul the branches down. And butterflies linger playfully -- an unbroken Dance floating to songs orioles sing at their ease. The TH-cam channel, NativLang has this video: What "Ancient" Chinese Sounded Like - and how we know It refers to chóngniǔ and the ongoing work to try and discover how very ancient Chinese was spoken. Wikipedia: Chóngniǔ Chóngniǔ (simplified Chinese: 重纽; traditional Chinese: 重紐; lit. 'repeated button') or rime doublets are certain pairs of Middle Chinese syllables that are consistently distinguished in rime dictionaries and rime tables, but without a clear indication of the phonological basis of the distinction" In searching through more ancient times, one would hope to be able to tell why the name of Temujin became Chinggis Khan. He was Borjinin. Where were those titles from? From ancient languages far to the west? From the Tocharians or similar peoples? Also, the names of some Chinese cities - capital cities - had -ching or -king. From: etymonline.com king (n.) a late Old English contraction of cyning "king, ruler" (also used as a title), from Proto-Germanic *kuningaz (source also of Dutch koning, Old Norse konungr, Danish konge, Old Saxon and Old High German kuning, Middle High German künic, German König). I think most people who read widely accept that humans spread out of Africa, then north, south, east and west, mixing with the Denisovans and the Neanderthals. Some people went east into Mongolia. Mongols went west. Zheng He went west. Russians and the marine powers went east. China's business now? Moon and planets everyone?
You should to the traditional characters next time! That would be fun to watch! I originally started studying traditional for about two years and when I started simplified I was like you in this video 🤣😂
Almost 3 years and it shows 1700 although in case of a few I did not check there were some which I ceertainly have had, but forgot. I keep track of all the vocabulary I have put in my daily flashcards and it includes ~2200 characters and ~4000 words so far. But it's just that they are in my Anki base to be repeated from time to time.
I don't even remember all those 50 alphabet in my mother language here she is chasing 82k character. what surprise me here is that she knew 6k character.
Below the video, you have schedule for days and times of group classes, but there is no link to click, nor is there any information about start date...as I am upper beginner (I think), I would only be able to take a class on a Saturday, since I am on USA time zone and I work :) But for others, maybe add a link so you get more business? (I did give thumbs up for this video, although I'm very far away from ready for a hanzi test!)
This really demonstrates how unnecessarily complicated Chinese is, as compared to a true alphabet. While all of us encounter words we don’t know the meaning of, with an alphabet we can still say them out loud. This is impossible in Chinese.
I'm a mainland migrant to a foreign English speaking Asian country of Northern Wu Dialect when very young. This standard Chinese is more or less pronounced with Beijing Chinese，my native language still followed my parents teaching. Which is still Chinese, but also when young the first thing I learned was my Shanghai dialect, while I'm of non native Shanghai descent, I guess in the end when it's standardized I still hold some dialect influenced pronunciation. I.e. if going by pronunciation it's quite biased towards northern parts of China even though I'm told after spending 25 years overseas I still sound like a Taiwan or Hong Kong person, even when my spoken English is entirely learned overseas. Weird how native accents doesn't go away. Also it's .... How do I put it English as a Indo European and Chinese as a Sino Tibetan language is probably the hardest pair to master. I still have to translate some English vocabulary to this day, due to how words are structured. But I guess in the end standard Mandarin is still mutually intelligible. PS. I self studied traditional/simplified Chinese, classical Chinese, read and write classical Chinese philosophy overseas, still gets embarrassed (freelance Chinese writer)😳 I guess I got curious , dropped out of university since my English wasn't good enough, and recently started self studying hundred schools of thought and relearning my Chinese all over again. Edit I took the test a few times both simplified and traditional is hovering around 4000. In singapore, English education system. Chinese I only have a gce o level A in Chinese. I remembered what I learned I tested according to o level chinese and I got 1700. Way lower than hsk 6 In the end this Chinese migrant here spent 0 years in the Chinese education system and managed to hit native Chinese speaking range anyway. It's.. possible.
In 2013, China adopted a list of 8,105 standard characters. Everything in modern Mandarin can be written with these characters. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_General_Standard_Chinese_Characters
Well, the national criterion for compulsory education (Grade 1-9) in the subject of Language and Literature (义务教育语文课程标准) is like this: Grade 1-2: recognize 1600 Chinese characters and be able to write 800. Grade 3-4: recognize 2500 Chinese characters in total and be able to write 1600 in total. Grade 5-6: recognize 3000 Chinese characters in total and be able to write 2500 in total. Grade 7-9: recognize 3500 Chinese characters in total and be able to write 3000 in total. After you finish the course of Grade 9, you will be about 15 years old. So 3500 actually is generally the average of ALL Chinese people, rather than educated people. For those who receive high school education, the Criterion no longer provides us with the number of characters we should master, but from my perspective, students will master about 400-500 new characters in three years.
If you finish the primary school in China (Grade 1-6) with high quality, you should be able to: (1)express yourself freely on everyday topics; (2)understand easy topics on society and science; (3) be able to recite and understand the easiest and simplest ancient Chinese literature. If you finish the middle school in China (Grade 7-9) with high quality, you should be able to: (1)narrate things vividly with logic on various topics; (2)understand and discuss basic topics on society and science; (3) be able to appreciate and translate easy and simple ancient Chinese literature. If you finish the high school in China (Grade 10-12) with high quality, you should be able to: (1)make logical comments and write articles on social hotspots in about 800-1000 Chinese characters in 50 minutes; (2) be ready to write basic academic essays; (3) understand the basic history of Classical Chinese literature, and be qualified to read and understand contemporary historical records in Ancient China, providing the basic skills for further study.
20 characters/day is a very aggressive pace that quickly becomes unsustainable, because after a few weeks you'll start forgetting faster than you learn. 5-8 characters/day is more realistic. It also becomes more slow and difficult at around the HSK5/6 level because the new characters you learn at those levels are used much less frequently than HSK 1/2/3 characters, which means they aren't reinforced as often when you read or listen to Chinese.
Great suggestion from an advanced level student!
Agreed. I learn 5 new traditional characters per day by writing them down once (including pinyin and English meaning) then I make up a sentence in my head with the new word, and then re-write the previous 2 days of characters (reviewing 10). This works fantastic for me and although not all words are perfectly cemented in my memory, when I move to Taipei I’m sure the training will help greatly and the words will come back quickly.
@@maitlandbezzina2842 This method sounds great! I’ll try it myself. Good luck to you! :)
Yes and only learn charachter i think is usless without context and pronunch and also recognize them in speach. I reached about 300 i think its pretty correct im finnish like the HSK 2 level online. Feel its gets easier the more you learned
That's stupid. ANd it's stupid so many different ways that it's not worth going into.
It’s actually pretty encouraging to see that even a native might struggle, so we don’t have to give up🤣
I started studying 中文 less than 2 months ago and I know ~250 characters. I’m quite happy with my progress 😋
很好！ Nice!
Nearly a month for me. And I'm at about 80 to 90.
Seems like I need to step up my game. :D
But it's kinda hard to study chinese, while the final exams for engineering are coming up in a few weeks.
I started to learn 2017.
I got Hsk-3 in October 2019.
So far I'm stuck in my level.
6 months to get Hsk-6, no way...
Unless you go and live in China and do nothing but studying Mandarin..
My friend went to Normal Universoty 2015, and learned intensive Mandarin for 8 months, only got Hsk-4...
@@ayi3455 "Only HSK-4"
With Hsk-4 aren't you able to speak to natives in Chinese nearly fluently?
Doing that in 8 months is remarkable.
@@ericthered2963
My friend did.
Not me.
I've never been to China myself...
@@ayi3455 Ah, you are right.
What I meant to write: Isn't one able to speak nearly fluently with hsk 4?
That would be an impressive feat.
I don't know why, but "cloud handshake" cracked me up
I laughed so hard 🤣 this is motivating!!! Thanks for being so genuine, for not faking perfection 💕
After about five months of learning through videos and worksheets, my estimated number of recognized characters is 130. I study a few hours most days, so I think this is good progress. Whiteboard and markers save a lot on paper!
Me siento tan aliviada de ver este video. I love how honest you are. ♥️👏
Respect your honesty in this video. I've only just started going deeper into Chinese for 3 months. My number is 80 and I'm pretty proud of that 😁
Some awesome soul just liked this comment on the day I completed 100 hours of studying Mandarin and redid the test (140 now!) My focus has been mainly the sounds of the language so all my characters have really just been incidental 😄
Even the college entrance exam requires 3,500 commonly used characters. Many characters are only used in ancient literacy, and if you don't research ancient Chinese, in no case could you meet them.
Or if you attend 高考
"Haotao daku [ 嚎啕大哭 ] ~ I'm definitely gonna haotao daku [ 嚎啕大哭 ] after this."
I felt that on a *PERSONAL* level.
@@白春见 Thank you so much. My goal is to learn as much as I can. Though I know learning never ends.
I have been studying Chinese for a year, self study along with my school stuff. I am still at HSK 3 with 670 characters. My reading is good, I have to practice with my writing, my typing and basic format of the sentences are also good. My listening comprehension sucks though, so I have a lot to improve. My pace is quite slow, but I am happy with the things I've learned cause I never place a lot of effort in something like this..
Hang out with native speakers that always helps
I learn 5 or 6 characters per day and try to use them in a sentence. I also watch a lot of chinese drama and try to recognise the characters that I have learned in the subtitle given below along with the pronounciation. In this way, I neve forget the charcters I have learned and it works for me. But I don't know about others because everyone has their own way. 😊
imagine watching Cantonese drama. you won't be able to learn mandarin lol
(I like cantonese more tho)
What a huge difference in the average number a native speaker knows when searched on the English platform vs the Chinese platform. I think I am more inclined to believe the Chinese platform. I moved to mainland China when I got married (my husband is from mainland China). I remember my husband telling me the average person knows probably between 2500 to 3500 and university students about 1500 to 2000 more than the average non-university educated. The Chinese search is right on par with what he was telling me. It may seem daunting and impossible, and people always say that there are too many characters. I would just like to point out that the English language has 171,146 words currently in use, which does not include 47,156 obsolete words (which you may still find in literature or historical TV Shows or Films). The average native English speaker knows about 20,000 words and university-educated native speakers about 40,000 words. So it may seem daunting, but I am positive with consistent studying, I can reach HSK9 and beyond as well as anyone else who wants to learn Chinese (whatever Their personal goal is). My goal is to learn as much as I can.
i believe it is 6500 words. i seen like 4 sources, all sources are so different.
@@soomiewleng5227 I wouldn't be surprised with the rise of education that the number is actually higher. In fact there new HSK is 9 levels and 11,092, which is a massive leap from previous.
idk anymore everybody opinion is quite different . the test i got 8000 which is unbelievable like i dk that many.
@@soomiewleng5227 the official new HSK is 9 levels with 11,092 words/characters. It's supposed to go into effect this year, but they haven't given a date on when exactly that is. It sure would help to know for those studying though to know what date it goes into effect. It seems incredibly daunting, but I'm trying to stay positive about the 11,092 characters.
i did think before that even if the benchmark is not strict as long as people are willing to learn we shouldn't discourage them. i just learned from comments that the hsk is now so tough....
Thank you for your enthusiasm, knowledge and genuity. I scored 150 after three years learning, a bit disappointed, but I carry on.
多谢 妳!
Characters are not necessarily words. For instance, 故事 (story) if turned around is 事故 (accident). Also 故 and 事 can also be used independently. Thus two characters can be 4 words. This is one reason why Chinese can be so difficult. Unfortunately, the HKS system does not consider these kinds of variables. One can know 4000 characters but not understand how to make words with them or know how to use them in sentences (ie word collocation).
I consider it a plus, in English you have to memorize two completely different words, "story" and "accident", but in Chinese with only two characters you know four words in total. For example I learned the words 生 and 日, and using these two words I was able to guess that 生日 means birthday, three words in two symbols
My guess without even watched the video : more than me🥺
8000 is way too high for an average number. My result is 7200, and I’m a native speaker who knows a lot about the history of Chinese language and I read a lot on ancient Chinese literature. I consider myself knowing the language much better than any other Chinese speakers around me.
劉金鑫 I don’t know why she had to make this video, a study has been made and the average is around 5000
Jim Joss I think 5000 is about right.
Clack Coaster I know Cantonese and Vietnamese as well. I’m a polyglot. :)
@@jinxinliu2497 how i want that! do you have tips for language learning?
20 - 023 Angela Rehita Noventiara One tip for learning pronunciation: learn International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), I mean the full set, not the subset of a particular language. There are interactive IPA charts online showing how each phoneme sounds like. Use that to practice all sorts of sounds in human languages. Another tip for memorizing vocabulary: use words frequency list, and start from the most common words. The 3000 most common words of any language shall have a good coverage of potential utterances the language can generate. An additional tip is that don’t rely too much on the examples in textbooks. Those examples are tailored heavily for language learning purpose, and thus can sound unnatural to native ears. Examples in dictionaries would be better, but the best examples have to come from materials of how native speakers actually use the language. Many major languages have good corpora, which are databases of text materials collected from daily uses for linguistic research-these things are rich ores you can tap.
Your sincerity is most valuable. Yours truly
Full attention - do not disturb by most possible
Concentration - attending n listening to a talks/ shows
Purpose - complete our daily jobs day by day
Confident - giving presentation / speech
Friendship - meeting Clients
Inclusion - be part of the big company family members
Diversity - free style
Respect - interview / promotion / meet big boss
Insight - working on a projects hope to get more ideas ...
Etc
I took the test and apparently I can recognize 900 characters. I think that's a bit exaggerated 😂
Oh, i can read the words (characters) of hsk 3. It isnt as hard as it seems. just repeat looking at them every day and soon you get it. No memory tricks or else were necessary
Yes!
@@ShuoshuoChinese remember to write is so much harder
drill and pray
As a first level learner, you are so good at inspiring students to learn through the HSK6 level. THANK YOU!!
You are so inspiring. Best Chinese teacher on the web.
thank you for the funny and honest video. it makes you so authentic.
That's adorable!! Xie Xie ni! I love this honest and funny video lol, the edit is like everything. The best
I really recommend using characters or at least pinyin when you write in chinese, if using phone you can add a keyboard to your phone where you type the pinyin and the characters show up, it's what I use.
When you type it like that it's very unclear what it means(in your case it's possible to figure out as it's a short phrase that is taught to many beginners), even with pinyin it's still harder, as many characters share the same pinyin.
I am half way through an HSK 5 course. I have read a Chinese novel. And I scored . . . 260. OK, so where is that balcony? I don’t suppose it helps to say I am dyslexic in every language I know. Never mind, I’ll continue working on comprehension of spoken language before I worry too much about characters.
I am still in the beginning of HSK 4 and I was estimated to know 400 characters. But oc we know many more than what the website said... Just in HSK vocabulary it is already more.
@@victoriadecastro8334 Yes. Sadly, I am dyslexic. I find it very hard to read characters with no context. I am concentrating on listening and speaking. Reading and writing are skills I acquire after learning to listen and speak - as I did in my native language and every other language I know.
@@transmathematica I took the test and got 1100 the first time then 1000 the second time (embarrassing). And I passed hsk 4 with excellent result and scared to take hsk5.. damn.. and yeah, your dislexia might affect your test.
Hey it is okay! I want to learn Chinese and I barely know any characters, and the ones I do kinda know, I barely remember their symbols. If you are halfway through an HSK 5 course, that is amazing, regardless of whatever number this test thing gives you. Dyslexia is not fun, but you can push through it mate.
I don't have dyslexia but I have a bit of a reading issue myself, likely from OCD, but I am pushing through it, and you can push through your dyslexia too my friend, no matter how hard, just keep going! Stay strong, positive, and just keep going, and just keep learning! You got this my friend! I am here for you if you need anything! 💪❤️
@@chenxiongxiong6778 does it feel good to brag?
合【collaboration】作
集【concentration】中
点【insight】子
礼【respect】貌
包【inclusion】容
专【absorption】心
自【confident】信
友【friendship】谊
伙【teamwork】伴
自【diversity】由
那个字体选择很重要
要给人喜欢外国又爱国的高级感觉
Fun video, thanks Shuo. Don't jump! Most native English speakers also recognise only a minority of words in a non-concise dictionary. You also just demonstrated that bilingual dictionaries can't always be trusted; bookish and genteel are not synonyms and a ladle is a type of large spoon used for serving food. If I may give you a tip, be careful with the word order for direct and indirect questions in English e.g. How many Chinese characters can you recognise? vs Would you like to find out how many Chinese characters you can recognise? Also you got caught out by a pesky auxiliary verb (do) e.g. Test how many Chinese characters you know vs How many Chinese characters do you know? Answer for me is apparently 500. Maybe can be 510 in a day or two!
Thank you so much for this test link!!!! ❤❤❤
funny as ever; you are really a gifted communicator. keep in mind that there are wrong entries in all kinds of dictionaries, printed or electronic. and "ladle" is not (quite) a spoon but a large spoon used by cooks, chefs (and yes, your mom; when she ladles the soup to each of you kids).
2000~3000 middle school level
6000~8000 High school level and this can be the highest level for most Chinese student, cause we won't force to learn Chinese anymore in university.
and 10000+ only Chinese major students.
Why do people complain about your intro? Almost every youtuber has something they keep saying in the beginning of their videos and I love hearing yours! ♥
I got estimate of 200 characters, ouch. I passed HSK 2 with ease in 2019, but I guess I need to study harder~
loved your video. too funny.
If I could remember all characters I study in a day I could take 130 days to learn Chinese.
But when tomorrow comes I forget what I learned yesterday.
Great video, as usual. I am ashamed that I only got a score of 200 after trying to learn since around 1 BC. (Before Corona), I guess there could be something wrong with that site, or have I been fooling myself?...you don't need to answer that. :) Now I will watch all of your videos again and see if my brains start filling up the gaps over the next 130 days. I hope the native Chinese speaker of Chinese living in Bangkok Thailand has done her math right. I will report back in 130 days. Love your videos!
I got 300 characters and I'm pretty happy about it, since I'm now finishing my studies for HSK 2. I think this shows I have kind of a solid base to start my intermediate studies and I am confident that I'll get to HSK 4 or even HSK 5 level in the following years :)))) And, Shuo, you're a big part of that journey. Thank you for your amazing videos! They always get me interested and motivated to keep studying Mandarin
Hi Shuo, I've taken this test and according to the characters I can recognize, the app says 400. The situation I see is that the problem is not how many characters do you know, but how you use them to create meaningful sentences and how and if you are able to understand those characters in the middle of some text... It's like learning english by memorizing words but not having a clue how to conect them to create phrases... Thank you for sharing your knowledge!!
So grateful test for me thanks so much for it greeting from Venezuelan
thank you for providing more insight about the Chinese language
I've tried this test and I got 2800.. somehow I'm impressed, because I'm learning Mandarin around 2.5 years :D
That just made my day, thank you 老师！haha
2800 should be enough to read most Chinese contents.
@@blandwinde Yeah! I'm able to read quite a lot :)
I took the test 3 times, I got 1300, 1400 and 1700 each trial respectively.
5:29 jump off the balcony haha. Just subscribed Gotta love your humor :)
hahaha 😂 thank you very much, you made my day. I really enjoy and learn a lot with all your videos. 谢谢老师 😊！
No wonder you left China. But seriously we still love you and you are one of our favorite Chinese teachers
You are amazing! I love your videos, they are useful and entertaining at the same time. What I love the most is that there is a lot of intermediate level content on your channel and I find this level the most difficult to find appropriate materials for. Btw I got 1500 characters, even though I forgot a lot for the past year
I would like to know 2 thinks:
1 - How do you know the correct way to pronounce a new Chinese character when you see it? (Pretend that there is no tool like Google translator to pronounce it to you).
2 - How are Chinese dictionaries organized so one could search for words definition. I believe that now a days it is possible to search words meaning using pinyin but how was it made in the past? I mean, prior the pinyin was invented.
Thanks.
native here wdym in the past
Western dictionaries all follow the alphabetical order of ordering and the way to pronounce words is given directly by the way they are written.
I would like to understand how the Chinese managed to consult the dictionary and how they discovered the pronunciation of words in the past (for example, in the 18th century), when there was no pinyin (as far as I know) or computers.
I hope I managed to explain myself (English is not my native language)
Thank you.
Took the test 3 times - 700 each time. So it's more or less consistent.
I took it like 4 times, cause my internet is shit and wasn't sure I got all there is. Is it really only two steps and then the result? I got 1800, which makes me kind of sad I should go back to study!
I did it twice, got 200 first time and 400 second time. I think it isn't that big of a difference considering my level is somewhere between HSK2 and HSK3 anyway.
祝你工作顺利，万事如意，牛年大吉!
If I follow their definition of "knowing", I get 300. If I include the characters I know at least one meaning for, but don't know how to pronounce, the number jumps up to 1000. That puts my reading ability two full HSK levels above my auditory skills, which sounds about right.
same I got 600, but I know more, I just don't always know how to pronunce them bc I mainly learned characters through other languages (Japanese and Korean Hanjas)
'Cha-rac-ter
3 syllables
...You are excellent.
According to the resuts of the Hanzi test, I got to be able to read about 1400 traditional characters but 800 simplified ones.
Very funny indeed. Please, do not jump out of the window! I am waiting for your next programm :)
You're so pretty, smart and funny at the same time. I think it's a pretty much complete package ❤️
Hey Shuo! I’ve been following for a while because (Mandarin) Chinese is fascinating and you’re interesting to watch. I just wanted to help you out - question words only invert the subject and verb if the phrase itself is a question. So, when you say “I will tell you how many characters can Chinese people read”, it should be “...how many characters Chinese people can read”.
我不太会中文。多的年前我学习一点的中文和今天我仍然会读一点的汉字。来自英国的问候。
Thank you!
I took my HSK5, currently working on my HSk6.. the problem is not learning the characters, the problem is confusing the characters..
when you have 10 Jing which look similar only different because of some radical on the top left... I find it much easier to recognize characters in a sentence than by themselves...
So learning 2600 characters is easy, telling them apart by meaning and tone is the hard part.
I took the test twice, 800 the first time, 1000 the second time.
王八：Cuckold - A man who's wife sleeps around behind his back.
Your search (in Chinese) for # of 汉子 average Chinese know is the same as what I've read. So knowing 6,000 is a lot!
Thanks so much for your channel.
There was a magnificent confirmation bias in this video😁
Still a nice video 👍
What is that?🧐
@@ShuoshuoChinese people like to see their own believes confirmed and as a result overlook information that indicates they are wrong. This phenomenon is called "confirmation bias".
I don't understand why he is talking about it though
老师怎么那么好笑啊 😂😂 还是good job！我觉得你太聪明了 嘻嘻
(I just did the test before proceeding with the video and it gave me 1800 :O)
Watched it & laughed how funny she was when she thought she knew some vocab words but those words turned out to have different meaning compared to what's written in the dict 😂
I remember my native Chinese teacher made a mistake of mispronouncing a word with a different tone that it should have been, then I realised how human that was and somehow it told me that it's okay not to be okay (hehe 😂) in the middle of my struggle of learning Mandarin..
honestly this is really helpful
myself who learning mandarin and japanese, sometimes I forget how a kanji read in mandarin
I get about 200 characters in hanzi, and i open a kanji test site, and I get about 360 characters
Teacher Shuo, as humans no one's perfect, only God is! Thanks for sharing, and no I won't unsubscribe to your channel. Love all your posts / videos!
我也爱泰国。我泰文说的很好。我在泰国住了十年。我是英文的老师。谢谢你。
I think display In this structure is better... classy
Good job Shuoshuo.
I hope to just get to a communicative level in maybe half a year...
Thanks for the video 🙂
加油！
@@ShuoshuoChinese 谢谢哈哈
According to the test after taking it several times somewhere around 900, always being charitable at some instances with remembering the right tone or the exact meaning, so having some more to learn for my next goal of the HSK4-level. Thanks a lot for sharing!
I've been learning Chinese on and off for about 3 years now. (Mostly off though) and I only know maybe 200 characters. I feel better seeing you, a native Chinese speaker struggling.
Did it three times got 2500, 2300 and 2500 again, but I was being generous with the tones and I've been at this for 11 years. I'm gonna keep playing this is fun!
Nice that you tried the test three times. Your scores are remarkably stable (what is called high reliability in testing theory).
I wonder what the testing effect is in this test, however. In other words, if someone takes the test more than once, does the score rise, not because of added learning, but as a result of becoming more test wise, or seeing many of the same words as before?
I suppose that the items are presented randomly, based on sampling from different levvels of difficulty -- we would need to see the algorithm for this, I guess.
@@denniskeefe1979 It looked like the site uses a sample set of characters to generate the test, not the full set of characters. If I remember correctly this is actually explained somewhere in the website. Although it seemed the set was quite large I did start to notice repeated characters in the "medium difficulty" level which over many turns would surely lead to an inaccurate score.
The test gave us three levels of characters, easy, medium and hard, when Shuo played she struggled with characters in the hard section at the end. For myself the characters in the middle were the most challenging while the final ones were completely new.
I'm between 700-800 according to taking 3 tests, which is about what I was expecting. The only way is up!
I love the Fact you Live In Thailand, That is so Cool and Intimate...
In Your Defense, When I lived in China for 8 Months, The People I lived with admitted to not knowing a Ton of Characters!!!
They also said they Did not know hardly any of the "Old" or Traditional Ones!!!
English isn't my native language but I'm pretty sure that a ladle usually is not the same as a spoon.
A ladle is what you would use to scoop soup from a pot into a bowl while a spoon is the device used to eat the soup.
Guessing that may also be the difference between 杓 and 勺. (?)
Yayyyy i did it 2nd time and i love you and your videos
1700 characters according to the quiz. I'm quite happy with it but my Saturday Chinese teachers must be disappointed lmao
I never miss a lesson🤩! I knew a few Japanese kanji, but I had to re-learn Chinese ones. In Hong Kong, it was even more different.
I’m In the same position.
How it’s?
U mean traditional Chinese characters? of course,Hongkong speak Cantonese, not Mandarin
Taiwanese speak Mandarin and use traditional characters, similar to Japan Kanji
if U learn Manarin in China mainland. its so different
My result is 1300 characters. I took the traditional characters test, because I mostly study them (I had Taiwanese teachers and textbooks). I'm quite satisfied, thought it would be worse :P
It would be interesting to know how many you can write... from my own experience its a great difference.
Btw love your videos so much!!
For me that's very close to zero, I can type them though.....
I is like me in french, there are a lot of word I mispell. So I guess it is normal to forget.
@@silentwilly2983 yeah it's the same with me i can write only the very basic ones but i can read so many😂
I guess it is because i didn't practice enough and just memorized them from seeing them often...
像我英语一样。我大概认识3000-4000左右的英语字儿。根据在我的调查上，一般母语英语使用者认识20000英语字儿。作为我自己，我应该也认识1500-1700左右。在我们的母语，我们也可以慢慢学新的字儿。你认识的汉子优秀，我相信你。
Jonathan Waller, a British expert of Sinology made Hsk vocabulary from lowest level to highest level...
Good luck to everyone learning Chinese!! It's a very difficult language so don't be too hard on yourself.
I'm a native speaker and I got 5800 on simplified characters 5000 on traditional and I'm from Taiwan. No wonder I failed my Chinese exam at school as a lot of characters appear in school test and I have no idea how to read it.
8k? Someone "fat fingered" that info.
Slang for mistyped words or numbers on keypads.
They should have caught it before posting it, though.
Love your format.
Fun, interactive...-ish, informative, comfortable, casual conversational flow, and, of course, educational.
Thank you for the video.
😇😎😇
Because this video is about vocabulary and the presenter knows 6000 characters, maybe one could try a quick survey about something:
Could it be that a word that ends with a falling and rising tone, for example, 朋友 - pung you, meaning, friend, has a suggestion that there may be some kind of doubt? Could that be disproved with reference to words with the same tone?
In English, people may use a different tone for a different intention.
For example, one may say, 'He/she is my friend', ending on a high tone. That sounds like a positive declaration.
One might say, "I'm not sure, maybe he/she is my friend," ending with the falling and rising tone.
English speakers and Chinese speakers have difficulty with tones in the other language.
I see that the falling and rising tone is called, simply, the rising tone. Also there is more variation in tones than I knew.
At Wikipedia, Four tones (Middle Chinese) I found this quote:
"The 上, or "rising" tone, arose from the loss of glottal stops at the end of words. Support for this can be seen in Buddhist transcriptions of the Han period, where the "rising" tone was often used to note Sanskrit short vowels, and also in loans of words with final [q] in the source language, which were borrowed into Chinese as shang tone."
Could it be that the rising tone indicates a traditional hesitancy with a word as though people might have felt unsure about the precise usage?
But then, 我, meaning 'I', has that tone. Would a person be unsure about that? Possibly, if among Chinese people it is considered impolite to use it excessively.
When I entered Tibet from Nepal a long time ago, right by the customs post there was a beautiful, yellow bush of the rose family, with butterflies dancing around it. I was looking at it for some time. A vehicle drove by and someone shouted at me, what I heard as, Du fou!. It sounded like French, with the first word more like German.
Years later, I learned what they might have meant. It was because of the poet, 杜甫 and here is a quote from one of his poems:
At Madame Huang's house, blossoms fill the paths:
Thousands, tens of thousands haul the branches down.
And butterflies linger playfully -- an unbroken
Dance floating to songs orioles sing at their ease.
The TH-cam channel, NativLang has this video:
What "Ancient" Chinese Sounded Like - and how we know
It refers to chóngniǔ and the ongoing work to try and discover how very ancient Chinese was spoken.
Wikipedia: Chóngniǔ
Chóngniǔ (simplified Chinese: 重纽; traditional Chinese: 重紐; lit. 'repeated button') or rime doublets are certain pairs of Middle Chinese syllables that are consistently distinguished in rime dictionaries and rime tables, but without a clear indication of the phonological basis of the distinction"
In searching through more ancient times, one would hope to be able to tell why the name of Temujin became Chinggis Khan. He was Borjinin. Where were those titles from? From ancient languages far to the west? From the Tocharians or similar peoples? Also, the names of some Chinese cities - capital cities - had -ching or -king.
From: etymonline.com
king (n.) a late Old English contraction of cyning "king, ruler" (also used as a title), from Proto-Germanic *kuningaz (source also of Dutch koning, Old Norse konungr, Danish konge, Old Saxon and Old High German kuning, Middle High German künic, German König).
I think most people who read widely accept that humans spread out of Africa, then north, south, east and west, mixing with the Denisovans and the Neanderthals. Some people went east into Mongolia. Mongols went west. Zheng He went west. Russians and the marine powers went east. China's business now? Moon and planets everyone?
You should to the traditional characters next time! That would be fun to watch! I originally started studying traditional for about two years and when I started simplified I was like you in this video 🤣😂
traditional characters look so cool dude
ONLY 2600? Dang! That's still an intimidating number!
"lost my face" is a chinese idiom ehehehe so cute to translate it to englissh
I got 2200 😂🤪 still low, my master's is in Chinese lingusitics :( Filipino here :D
Almost 3 years and it shows 1700 although in case of a few I did not check there were some which I ceertainly have had, but forgot. I keep track of all the vocabulary I have put in my daily flashcards and it includes ~2200 characters and ~4000 words so far. But it's just that they are in my Anki base to be repeated from time to time.
I don't even remember all those 50 alphabet in my mother language here she is chasing 82k character. what surprise me here is that she knew 6k character.
Beautiful, cherished and beloved alphabet. :)
Below the video, you have schedule for days and times of group classes, but there is no link to click, nor is there any information about start date...as I am upper beginner (I think), I would only be able to take a class on a Saturday, since I am on USA time zone and I work :) But for others, maybe add a link so you get more business? (I did give thumbs up for this video, although I'm very far away from ready for a hanzi test!)
我是用你的频道学英文的，都是能听懂的可理解输入，相当巴适！
This really demonstrates how unnecessarily complicated Chinese is, as compared to a true alphabet. While all of us encounter words we don’t know the meaning of, with an alphabet we can still say them out loud. This is impossible in Chinese.
I'm a mainland migrant to a foreign English speaking Asian country of Northern Wu Dialect when very young.
This standard Chinese is more or less pronounced with Beijing Chinese，my native language still followed my parents teaching. Which is still Chinese, but also when young the first thing I learned was my Shanghai dialect, while I'm of non native Shanghai descent, I guess in the end when it's standardized I still hold some dialect influenced pronunciation.
I.e. if going by pronunciation it's quite biased towards northern parts of China even though I'm told after spending 25 years overseas I still sound like a Taiwan or Hong Kong person, even when my spoken English is entirely learned overseas. Weird how native accents doesn't go away.
Also it's .... How do I put it English as a Indo European and Chinese as a Sino Tibetan language is probably the hardest pair to master. I still have to translate some English vocabulary to this day, due to how words are structured.
But I guess in the end standard Mandarin is still mutually intelligible.
PS. I self studied traditional/simplified Chinese, classical Chinese, read and write classical Chinese philosophy overseas, still gets embarrassed (freelance Chinese writer)😳
I guess I got curious , dropped out of university since my English wasn't good enough, and recently started self studying hundred schools of thought and relearning my Chinese all over again.
Edit I took the test a few times both simplified and traditional is hovering around 4000.
In singapore, English education system. Chinese I only have a gce o level A in Chinese. I remembered what I learned I tested according to o level chinese and I got 1700. Way lower than hsk 6
In the end this Chinese migrant here spent 0 years in the Chinese education system and managed to hit native Chinese speaking range anyway.
It's.. possible.
I got 400 in the first & 600 in the second
In 2013, China adopted a list of 8,105 standard characters. Everything in modern Mandarin can be written with these characters. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_General_Standard_Chinese_Characters
Well, the national criterion for compulsory education (Grade 1-9) in the subject of Language and Literature (义务教育语文课程标准) is like this:
Grade 1-2: recognize 1600 Chinese characters and be able to write 800.
Grade 3-4: recognize 2500 Chinese characters in total and be able to write 1600 in total.
Grade 5-6: recognize 3000 Chinese characters in total and be able to write 2500 in total.
Grade 7-9: recognize 3500 Chinese characters in total and be able to write 3000 in total.
After you finish the course of Grade 9, you will be about 15 years old. So 3500 actually is generally the average of ALL Chinese people, rather than educated people.
For those who receive high school education, the Criterion no longer provides us with the number of characters we should master, but from my perspective, students will master about 400-500 new characters in three years.
Those who succeed in passing HSK6 may reach the best level of a 10-year-old child or the average level of a 12-year-old child in China~
If you finish the primary school in China (Grade 1-6) with high quality, you should be able to: (1)express yourself freely on everyday topics; (2)understand easy topics on society and science; (3) be able to recite and understand the easiest and simplest ancient Chinese literature.
If you finish the middle school in China (Grade 7-9) with high quality, you should be able to: (1)narrate things vividly with logic on various topics; (2)understand and discuss basic topics on society and science; (3) be able to appreciate and translate easy and simple ancient Chinese literature.
If you finish the high school in China (Grade 10-12) with high quality, you should be able to: (1)make logical comments and write articles on social hotspots in about 800-1000 Chinese characters in 50 minutes; (2) be ready to write basic academic essays; (3) understand the basic history of Classical Chinese literature, and be qualified to read and understand contemporary historical records in Ancient China, providing the basic skills for further study.
I know at least 200 but when I visited Taiwan. My brain was blank. lol
1200 characters... about right, but I think I recognise more in context.
I just watched a drama, where they made fun of the princess for being illiterate... This hits so different now!😂