How Many Chinese Characters Do You Need to Learn to Read Chinese?
At a glance Total characters in existence: over 85,000, but the vast majority are obsolete or extremely rare Basic daily literacy: 1,000 to 2,000 characters covers menus, signs, and everyday messages Newspaper reading: around 2,500 to 3,500 characters, equivalent to HSK 5-6 500 characters: already enough to recognize 75% of modern written Chinese, according to […]