Generally, there is no accurate counting of Chinese characters. The Xinhua Chinese Dictionary published in 2005 has over 14,245 character entries. Fortunately, however, the majority of them have become obsolete and some found only once in the whole history of the written language, such as the names of people or places. So how many Chinese characters do you need to know? For basic reading and writing of modern Chinese, you only need a few thousands. The coverage rates of the most frequently used Chinese characters are listed below:
Most frequently used 2,500 characters: 98.0%
Secondarily Frequently Used 1,000 Characters plus the above 2,500: 99.5%
Therefore, the 3,500 frequently used characters will enable you to understand almost all the content in nowadays Chinese publications.
Reviewer: Allison 莲丽 Rating:: 3
By viewing the characters, at least for me, I get an idea of just how many characters I don't recognize. I could spend hours looking up these characters which I still need to be familiar with.
Reviewer: akhilesh Rating:: 3
good
Reviewer: Daniel Rating:: 3
I would also enjoy viewing these lists in traditional character script.
Reviewer: Adi Rating:: 5
Excellent!
Reviewer: Guest Rating:: 4
Reviewer: SAU Rating:: 3
Reviewer: Guest Rating:: 1
Reviewer: bien Rating:: 1
Reviewer: Guest Rating:: 5
Reviewer: Guest Rating:: 3
I am a Chinese native speaker. I don't believe "knowing all 3,500 frequently used characters will enable you to understand almost all the content in nowadays Chinese publications." It is only the 1st step. The 2nd one is that you need to master a lot of (I don't know how many) words/phrases, or combinations of characters. Just like English, you may know the word "figure" and "out", but the phrase "figure out" is totally different. Don't try to remember each of the 3,500 characters individulely. The best way to remeber them is to use and remember phrases in sentences. The rule is the more you encouter a phrase, the more likely you remember it. My always suggestion to Chinese language learners is "learn Chinese language by reading and speaking sentences".
Reviewer: zac Rating:: 3
Reviewer: Melissa Rating:: 1
it say most frequently used words dont see any
Reviewer: Guest Rating:: 4
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