How many Chinese words do you know?
A 42-item test that estimates your Chinese vocabulary size against the 4,995 words of the official HSK 1–6 lists. Takes about three minutes. Scored in your browser — nothing is submitted and nothing is stored.
Before you start
You will see one Chinese word at a time. Say whether you know what it means — you are not asked to type or say anything.
Some of the items are not real Chinese words. They are made up from real characters to look plausible. That is on purpose: how often you claim those is how the test measures overclaiming, and it is subtracted from your score. Answering honestly gives you a number worth having.
42 items · about 3 minutes · no sign-up
Item 1 of 42
Your Chinese vocabulary
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words, of the 4,995 in HSK 1–6
Text you can read
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Where your words are
Each bar is one HSK level: how much of that level you know, and roughly how many of its words that is.
The words you didn't know
Easiest first. Tap to save one to your review deck, or the word itself for its dictionary entry.
What to do next
How the number is worked out
The HSK lists are the only frequency ordering of Chinese vocabulary this site owns, so they are used as bands: HSK 1 is the most common vocabulary, HSK 6 the least. You are shown a sample from each band, and the share you know is multiplied by how many words that band actually holds.
| Band | Words | Share of real sentences | Running total |
|---|---|---|---|
| HSK 1 | 150 | 46.9% | 46.9% |
| HSK 2 | 151 | 15.8% | 62.7% |
| HSK 3 | 297 | 14.7% | 77.4% |
| HSK 4 | 598 | 2.3% | 79.7% |
| HSK 5 | 1,300 | 0.8% | 80.5% |
| HSK 6 | 2,499 | 0.1% | 80.7% |
The HSK lists together account for 80.7% of the words in that corpus. The rest are names, rarer vocabulary and words outside the lists — they stay in the denominator on purpose, because leaving out the words nobody knows is how coverage figures get inflated.
Why some of the items are fake
Ask people whether they know a word and they will say yes to words they only half-recognise — more often in the harder bands, which is exactly where the estimate is most sensitive. So 12 of the items are plausible two-character compounds that this site's dictionary confirms are not words. The share of those you claim is your own overclaiming rate, and it is subtracted from every band. If you claim none, nothing is taken off.
Questions people ask
How many Chinese words do I need to know?
Around 600 words (HSK 1–3) carries basic conversation, about 1,200 (HSK 4) covers day-to-day life, and roughly 5,000 (HSK 6) is the level tested for university study in Chinese. This test measures you against all 4,995 of them.
How accurate is this?
It is an estimate with a range, not a count. It measures recognition — whether you know a word when you see it — which is always larger than the vocabulary you can produce from memory when speaking. Take it twice and you will get slightly different numbers; the range is there to tell you how much.
Is anything stored?
No. Nothing is submitted, no account exists to submit it to, and your answers never leave your browser. Words you save to your review deck are kept on your own device.
Related free tools
- Chinese Placement Quiz — this test gives you a number; that one gives you a study path
- HSK 1–6 Vocabulary Lists — the full lists this test measures against, with audio and free PDFs
- HSK Text Analyzer — paste any Chinese text and see which words in it are above your level
- HSK Flashcards — the same words one card at a time
- Review Your Saved Words — spaced repetition on everything you saved above
- Chinese Dictionary — look up any word, with its character breakdown