<p>I write a simple script to compute the plot from an old phrase frequency data.</p>

<p><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/GFw9G.png" alt="plot"></p>

<p>If you're interested, here is the <a href="http://pastebin.com/LDWsWzyr" rel="nofollow noreferrer">raw data</a>.</p>

<p>These data are for Taiwan's traditional Chinese,<br>
but the statistics should be very similar to simplified Chinese.    </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-07-15T03:09:51.683Z
2014-07-15T03:16:15.297Z
2014-07-15T03:16:15.297Z
AngelLeliel
<p>I'm curious about that "30,000 words for a native" number. HSK lvl 5 at 2,500 words and 1,685 characters is what allows you to read a newspaper. HSK lvl 6, at 5,000 words, is regarded as complete fluency of the Chinese language. There will obviously be people who know many more words, but I don't think when 5,000 words means fluency, that a native would know 30,000, that's a massive amount of words. The literacy rate in China is at 95%, which is still relatively low, I don't think a native knows 30,000 words, maybe around 10,000 if I had to make a wild guess. According to a harvard study the average English speaker knows 12,000 words.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-07-15T14:20:49.467Z
This, first off is totally not an answer and would be more suited as a comment. Secondly, literacy has nothing to do with the amount of words somebody knows (granted there is a bit difference between formal and informal words in Chinese but even formal words would be used on tv and on the radio). Thirdly HSK is used to measure proficiency and not fluency - someone at level 6 has ok Chinese but I wouldn't venture to say it's anywhere near fluent.
Mou某
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-07-15T14:25:59.560Z
Education is obviously linked to the amount of characters and words you know, GLM and Harvad showed that high school students have a smaller vocabulary than college students. For High school students their vocabulary was around 10,000, some college students have a vocabulary of 20,000. However, I think the 30,000 number is a bit high for natives in China.
Aurelie
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-07-15T14:34:16.297Z
OP is talking about the number of words people know - I'm sure the illiterate know a number of words without knowing characters...
Mou某
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-04-25T08:41:33.907Z
As someone who is at HSK6 level I can assure you it is absolutely nowhere near "complete fluency". When I watch Chinese TV I understand less than half of it.
Angus Macrae
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-07-15T14:07:54.650Z
2014-07-15T14:20:48.320Z
2014-07-15T14:20:48.320Z
Aurelie
<p>I assume this would be wouldn't be too hard to calculate with a proper database, but does anyone know the number of unique characters/morphemes used in the 5000, 10000, 30000, etc. most common words? </p>

<p>For example, I heard that 6000 characters covers over 99% of words in modern usage, and assuming that a native's passive vocabulary is around 30000, I conclude that there are approximately 6000 unique characters used in the 30000 most common words (this could be way off).</p>

<p>I am curious about these statistics. Preferably, someone has a nice plot showing the relationship between the two, but a few data points would also be appreciated. </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-07-15T01:45:48.953Z
Are the "words" in your question 2-character or 3-character phrase like "因為", "知道", and so on?
AngelLeliel
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-07-15T02:45:17.890Z
It seems what you need is 字频表. This is [one example](http://lingua.mtsu.edu/chinese-computing/statistics/char/list.php?Which=TO), you can find 3591 characters have already covered 99% of words in that corpus. And for [this example](http://www.edu.tw/files/site_content/M0001/pin/biau1.htm?open) (traditional characters), 3047 characters for 99% coverage.
Stan
<vocabulary><characters>
Number of unique characters in the X most common words?
# Number of unique characters in the X most common words?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2014-07-15)

I assume this would be wouldn't be too hard to calculate with a proper database, but does anyone know the number of unique characters/morphemes used in the 5000, 10000, 30000, etc. most common words?

For example, I heard that 6000 characters covers over 99% of words in modern usage, and assuming that a native's passive vocabulary is around 30000, I conclude that there are approximately 6000 unique characters used in the 30000 most common words (this could be way off).

I am curious about these statistics. Preferably, someone has a nice plot showing the relationship between the two, but a few data points would also be appreciated.

**Tags:** vocabulary, characters

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Are the "words" in your question 2-character or 3-character phrase like "因為", "知道", and so on?  
> **username_2**: It seems what you need is 字频表. This is [one example](http://lingua.mtsu.edu/chinese-computing/statistics/char/list.php?Which=TO), you can find 3591 characters have already covered 99% of words in that corpus. And for [this example](http://www.edu.tw/files/site_content/M0001/pin/biau1.htm?open) (traditional characters), 3047 characters for 99% coverage.  

---

## 2 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2014-07-15. Score: 3 | Accepted answer

I write a simple script to compute the plot from an old phrase frequency data.

![plot](https://i.sstatic.net/GFw9G.png)

If you're interested, here is the [raw data](http://pastebin.com/LDWsWzyr).

These data are for Taiwan's traditional Chinese,  
but the statistics should be very similar to simplified Chinese.


---

### Answer by username_3 on 2014-07-15. Score: 0

I'm curious about that "30,000 words for a native" number. HSK lvl 5 at 2,500 words and 1,685 characters is what allows you to read a newspaper. HSK lvl 6, at 5,000 words, is regarded as complete fluency of the Chinese language. There will obviously be people who know many more words, but I don't think when 5,000 words means fluency, that a native would know 30,000, that's a massive amount of words. The literacy rate in China is at 95%, which is still relatively low, I don't think a native knows 30,000 words, maybe around 10,000 if I had to make a wild guess. According to a harvard study the average English speaker knows 12,000 words.

> **Comments:**
> **username_4**: This, first off is totally not an answer and would be more suited as a comment. Secondly, literacy has nothing to do with the amount of words somebody knows (granted there is a bit difference between formal and informal words in Chinese but even formal words would be used on tv and on the radio). Thirdly HSK is used to measure proficiency and not fluency - someone at level 6 has ok Chinese but I wouldn't venture to say it's anywhere near fluent.  
> **username_3**: Education is obviously linked to the amount of characters and words you know, GLM and Harvad showed that high school students have a smaller vocabulary than college students. For High school students their vocabulary was around 10,000, some college students have a vocabulary of 20,000. However, I think the 30,000 number is a bit high for natives in China.  
> **username_4**: OP is talking about the number of words people know - I'm sure the illiterate know a number of words without knowing characters...  
> **username_5**: As someone who is at HSK6 level I can assure you it is absolutely nowhere near "complete fluency". When I watch Chinese TV I understand less than half of it.  

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