HSK Textbooks and Exam Preparation

Q: Do I have to buy anything for hsk textbooks?

No. This site covers the same ground for free — All six HSK word lists, free, Free HSK mock tests, Printable HSK 1–3 workbook (PDF) — and those pages need no account and cost nothing. The items on this page are for the things a website cannot be.

Q: Are these ranked by what they pay you?

No, and they structurally cannot be: the data record behind a recommendation on this site has no field for a commission, a rate or a partner, so the ordering cannot follow the money. Every item is ordered by who the reader is.

Q: Why is there no price shown?

Because we have no licensed way to keep a price current, and a stale price on a page like this is worse than none. Cost is shown as a band instead — budget, mid-range or premium.

The course books that actually follow the HSK syllabus, and the one thing none of them give you.

Free on this site, right now

Every word on the HSK syllabus is already on this site for nothing, level by level, with audio, and six printable PDFs of the lists. So the honest question is not "which textbook has the words" — they all do — it is whether you need the thing a word list structurally cannot give you: an order to learn them in, a grammar point attached to each batch, and exercises that force production rather than recognition.

If you are self-studying without a teacher, that sequencing is worth paying for and it is the only reason to buy any of these. If you are already in a class, buy whatever your teacher uses and stop reading this page — a second course book run in parallel is the most common way self-learners stall, because the two books introduce the same grammar in a different order and you end up re-learning rather than progressing.

Every item below says what it does not do. Nothing is ordered by what it pays — see how this page is written.

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Showing every level in this category.

Beginner Mid-range

HSK Standard Course 1 (textbook + workbook)

Jiang Liping · Beijing Language and Culture University Press

This is the series written by the people who write the exam, and it shows in a specific way: the vocabulary in each chapter is exactly the official list for that level, in the order the test assumes you met it, so nothing you study is wasted. The fifteen lessons cover HSK 1's 150 words with a listening track for each. Buy the workbook alongside it rather than instead of it — the textbook alone gives you very little to actually do, and doing is the part that sticks.

What it does not do: It explains grammar thinly and almost entirely in translation, so if you want to understand why a sentence is built the way it is you will be looking that up elsewhere. The recordings are slow and studio-clean; they will not prepare you for a real conversation.

Free here first: All 150 HSK 1 words, free

Look it up on amazon.ca

Intermediate Mid-range

HSK Standard Course 3 (textbook + workbook)

Jiang Liping · Beijing Language and Culture University Press

HSK 3 is where most self-learners quietly stop, and the reason is structural rather than motivational: it is the first level where you need grammar you cannot guess from English — 把, 了 in its several jobs, complements of result and direction. This volume drills exactly those, in the order the exam meets them, across 600 words. If you are going to buy one book in this whole series, the case for buying this one is far stronger than for buying book 1.

What it does not do: It assumes you finished HSK 1–2 somewhere and does not revise them. The reading passages are written to be answerable rather than to be interesting, so this will not make you want to read Chinese — that is what the graded readers are for.

Free here first: All 600 HSK 3 words, free

Look it up on amazon.ca

Beginner Premium

Integrated Chinese, Level 1 Part 1

Cheng & Tsui

The book most North American university programmes teach from, and it is a genuinely better teaching text than the HSK series: the dialogues are situational rather than exam-shaped, the grammar notes explain the underlying logic instead of listing patterns, and it introduces characters properly from the start rather than leaning on pinyin. If you want to understand Chinese rather than pass a test in it, start here.

What it does not do: It does not follow the HSK syllabus, so its vocabulary will not line up with the exam word lists and you will meet words the test does not use. It is also the most expensive book on this page by a wide margin, and the full set runs to four volumes.

Free here first: 26 free grammar lessons

Look it up on amazon.ca

Elementary Mid-range

New Practical Chinese Reader, Book 1

Liu Xun · Beijing Language and Culture University Press

The older standard, still widely used outside North America, and it has one real advantage over both books above: a continuous cast of characters whose story runs across the whole series, which gives the dialogues a reason to exist. Its phonetics section at the front is also the most thorough treatment of tones and syllable structure in any beginner textbook, and it front-loads it rather than sprinkling it through the chapters.

What it does not do: The design is dated and dense, and the English is occasionally stilted. Like Integrated Chinese it does not track the HSK lists, so it is the wrong choice if you have an exam booked.

Free here first: Free pinyin chart with audio

Look it up on amazon.ca

Elementary Budget

Chinese Grammar Wiki BOOK: Elementary (A1/A2)

John Pasden · AllSet Learning

A reference, not a course, and that is exactly why it belongs beside whichever textbook you chose. Each grammar point gets a one-page treatment: the structure, several example sentences, and — the part almost no textbook does — the common wrong version and why it is wrong. When your course book explains 了 in four lines and you are still lost, this is the book you open. It is cheap, it is thin, and it will get more use than the textbook.

What it does not do: There are no exercises and no audio, and it will teach you nothing if you read it cover to cover. It is only useful as something you reach for when a specific sentence has confused you.

Free here first: 26 grammar points with drills, free

Look it up on amazon.ca

Advanced Premium

HSK Standard Course 5 (two volumes)

Jiang Liping · Beijing Language and Culture University Press

HSK 5 is 1,300 new words and the jump in register is larger than the jump in count: the texts move from dialogue to written prose, with the compressed four-character phrasing and formal connectives that written Chinese actually uses. This volume is the only structured route through that transition, and the reading passages are closer to real material than anything at the lower levels. Two volumes, and you will need both.

What it does not do: It is a grind, and it is not designed to be enjoyable — at this level the enjoyable route is reading real material with a dictionary. Buy it if you have an exam date, not if you want to improve generally.

Free here first: All 1,300 HSK 5 words with examples, free

Look it up on amazon.ca