HSK character levels
The HSK (Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi) is the standard proficiency exam for Chinese learners. Its syllabus assigns every character to a level, giving you a ready-made path from the first 你好 to newspaper Chinese. Each level below links to the full character list with pinyin and stroke order.
Current standard — HSK 3.0 (2021)
The Chinese Proficiency Grading Standards for International Chinese Language Education (GF0025-2021) define 3,000 characters across nine levels: 300 per level for levels 1–6, plus a 1,200-character advanced band covering levels 7–9.
Level 1
300 characters
Survival basics — greetings, numbers, everyday nouns.
Level 2
299 characters · cumulative 599
Everyday communication — shopping, directions, simple past and future.
Level 3
300 characters · cumulative 899
Daily life fluency — opinions, descriptions, longer conversations.
Level 4
300 characters · cumulative 1199
Broad topics — work, study, news, and connected paragraphs.
Level 5
300 characters · cumulative 1499
Reading fluency — newspapers, essays, abstract discussion.
Level 6
300 characters · cumulative 1799
Near-native reading — idioms, formal writing, nuanced argument.
Levels 7–9
1200 characters · cumulative 2999
Advanced band — literary, technical and professional Chinese.
Previous standard — HSK 2012 (HSK 1–6)
Before 2021 the exam listed vocabulary in six levels. Character grades below are derived from the official word lists: a character belongs to the lowest level whose words contain it. Still useful — much older study material is organized this way.