Chinese Vocabulary
Mandarin vocabulary organized by frequency, HSK level, and thematic categories.
Vocabulary organized by frequency corpus, HSK level, and thematic topic.
Coverage
| List | Words | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Frequency Top 100 | 100 | SUBTLEX-CH corpus |
| Frequency Top 500 | 500 | SUBTLEX-CH corpus |
| Frequency Top 3000 | 3,000 | SUBTLEX-CH corpus |
| HSK 1 (A1) | 299 | HSK 3.0 official |
| HSK 1–3 (A1–A2) | 997 | HSK 3.0 official |
| HSK 1–6 (A1–C1) | 5,397 | HSK 3.0 official |
| HSK 1–9 (A1–C2) | 10,877 | HSK 3.0 official |
→ See HSK vocabulary by level
Thematic Vocabulary
| Topic | Key Words | Level |
|---|---|---|
| Family | 爸爸, 妈妈, 哥哥, 姐姐, 儿子, 女儿 | HSK 1-2 |
| Numbers & Time | 年月日, 星期, 点钟, 分钟 | HSK 1 |
| Food & Drink | 吃, 喝, 饭, 面条, 水, 茶 | HSK 1-3 |
| Transport & Travel | 飞机, 火车, 地铁, 打车 | HSK 2-3 |
| Body & Health | 头, 手, 脚, 医院, 药 | HSK 2-3 |
| Work & Business | 工作, 公司, 会议, 合同 | HSK 3-5 |
| Education | 学校, 老师, 考试, 成绩 | HSK 2-4 |
| Nature & Weather | 天气, 下雨, 刮风, 温度 | HSK 2-3 |
| Technology | 手机, 电脑, 网络, 软件 | HSK 4-5 |
| Emotions | 高兴, 难过, 生气, 担心 | HSK 1-4 |
| Culture | 春节, 中秋节, 饺子, 功夫 | HSK 3-6 |
Key Frequency Facts
- Top 1,000 characters cover ~90% of common written Chinese text
- Top 500 words cover ~75% of basic conversation
- Functional literacy (newspaper): ~2,000–3,000 characters
- HSK 6 (~5,400 words) ≈ educated adult reading level for most modern Chinese
Frequency Sources
- SUBTLEX-CH (Cai & Brysbaert 2010): frequency from ~33M word subtitle corpus
- Jun Da: character frequency from ~3M character news/literature corpus
- CC-CEDICT: 120,000+ dictionary entries (basis for word lists)
High-Frequency Starter Vocabulary
The 30 most essential words for any Mandarin learner:
| Chinese | Pinyin | English | HSK | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 我 | wǒ | I, me | 1 | |
| 你 | nǐ | you (singular) | 1 | |
| 他/她/它 | tā | he/she/it | 1 | Same sound, diff. char |
| 们 | men | plural suffix | 1 | 我们 we, 你们 you all |
| 是 | shì | to be (copula) | 1 | Only before nouns |
| 有 | yǒu | to have; there is | 1 | |
| 不 | bù | not, no | 1 | Changes to bú before 4th tone |
| 没 | méi | not (for 有/past) | 1 | 没有 = don't have / didn't |
| 的 | de | 's, of (attributive) | 1 | Most common character in Chinese |
| 了 | le | completion aspect | 1 | Also change-of-state |
| 在 | zài | at, in, on; to be at | 1 | |
| 也 | yě | also, too | 1 | |
| 都 | dōu | all, both | 1 | |
| 很 | hěn | very | 1 | Also copula with adj. |
| 这 | zhè | this | 1 | 这个, 这里 |
| 那 | nà | that | 1 | 那个, 那里 |
| 什么 | shénme | what | 1 | |
| 哪 | nǎ | which | 1 | 哪个, 哪里 |
| 怎么 | zěnme | how | 1 | |
| 好 | hǎo | good | 1 | Also "very" in 好高 |
| 大 | dà | big, large | 1 | |
| 小 | xiǎo | small | 1 | |
| 多 | duō | many, much | 1 | |
| 少 | shǎo | few, little | 1 | |
| 可以 | kěyǐ | can, may | 1 | Permission/possibility |
| 要 | yào | want; will; need | 1 | Context-dependent |
| 去 | qù | to go | 1 | |
| 来 | lái | to come | 1 | |
| 说 | shuō | to say, speak | 1 | |
| 知道 | zhīdào | to know | 1 |