#hsklevel.com

Here is another follow-up using hsklevel.com !

For reference, I take it twice, once giving myself "yes" if I knew it without looking at the answer or if i guessed the definition accurately based on characters I knew, and "so-so" for if I knew the word after seeing the pinyin, or if I would've inferred the definition accurately in a sentence. The second time I took it I only used yes/no (no so-so) with "yes" only if I knew the pinyin and definition.

Here are my comparisons !!

From 9/19/21:

Knowing Partial: 3680 words, HSK 4, TOCFL B.1

Knowing Fully: 1090 words, HSK 3, TOCFL Novice 2

From 3/7/22:

Knowing Partial: 5500 words, 1560 characters, HSK 5, TOCFL B.1

Knowing Fully: 3800 words, 1280 characters, HSK 4, TOCFL B.1

Today 4/21/23:

Knowing Partial: 8000 words, HSK5, TOCFL B.1

Knowing Fully: 6750 words, HSK4, TOCFL B.1

And below you can see screenshots <3 I'm very proud, especially since I feel like I've stalled out a lot the past 6 months or so. Even passively studying I keep moving forward!!

Though tbh I do feel like this is probably a bit higher than I actually am. I know I'm much further along than I was a year ago, but doubled seems 😅 a bit generous

So I took this twice, once giving myself credit if I knew the word after seeing the pinyin (since there are quite a few words I know from conversational lessons/TV that I don't know the characters well for), and then once only giving myself credit if I could pronounce the word and know the definition just by looking at the characters alone. Needless to say... they were extremely different scores.

This being said I think I'm somewhere between these scores, but more towards the higher score – a lot, if not all, of the characters I didn't immediately recognize in my 2nd test I probably would've recognized in the context of a sentence.

So based on all this I would estimate I probably know around 3000 words for everyday conversation when texting my Chinese friends. In speech... I'm probably closer to the lower score... 😅😬😭

So this is a follow-up to this post I made 9/19/21 where I first documented my level based on hsklevel.com. For reference, at that time I took it twice, once giving myself credit if I knew partial words (pinyin or meaning or guessed partial meaning from characters) and then once if I knew the entire thing (pinyin and meaning of the whole word).

I took it again now! Here's the comparison. (HSK levels are for the old system)

From 9/19/21:

Knowing Partial: 3680 words, HSK 4, TOCFL B.1

Knowing Fully: 1090 words, HSK 3, TOCFL Novice 2

Here's my new scores from today!

Knowing Partial: 5500 words, 1560 characters, HSK 5, TOCFL B.1

Knowing Fully: 3800 words, 1280 characters, HSK 4, TOCFL B.1

While I'm still HSK 4 in the old system (meaning HSK 3 in the new system), this shows that the words I know immediately just by looking is actually ~3000, whereas in September, it was only ~1000. But there is still a huge gap between the ones I know partially and the ones I truly know 😅😅

I know 6750 words in Chinese:

Old HSK 2.0 level 4/6

🟩🟩🟩🟨⬛⬛

New HSK 3.0 level 4/9

🟩🟩🟩🟨⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛

You can see on the graph my result was slightly under 6000 words at the beginning of 2026, when I started only answerimg words known IF I knew both the hanzi and pronunciation. So I have learned 750-1000 words (known in reading AND speaking) since then wooh!

I am excited seeing words known go up on this. Now this is words I can confidently say I know in reading and listening.

Back when I was focusing on reading, it was exciting seeing the number go up too. You can see at my height of reading I could recognize around 16,000 words. 8,000 words is the last result I got when I answered yes if I could simply read a word (not necessarily know the pronunciation), after not reading for months. So I think 8000 words is my reliable reading level of vocabulary. Even if I take breaks.