<p>Based on <a href="https://github.com/CNMan/XDHYCD7th" rel="nofollow noreferrer">《现代汉语词典》第7版 on GitHub</a>, I found 4576 characters used in more than one word. Note that this source file is probably different from 《现代汉语词典》第7版 and definitely different from the one in their claim.</p>
<p>My Python code is below.</p>
<pre><code>import re

import requests

url = &quot;https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CNMan/XDHYCD7th/master/XDHYCD7th.txt&quot;
txt = requests.get(url).text
pattern = re.compile(r&quot;^【(.*?)】&quot;)
counts: dict[str, int] = {}

for line in txt.splitlines():
    match = pattern.search(line)
    if not match:
        continue
    word = match.group(1)  # find words in 【】
    if len(word) == 1 and word[0] not in counts:
        # Ignore single characters
        counts[word[0]] = 0
    if len(word) &gt; 1:
        # Ignore repetitive characters
        for character in set(word):
            counts[character] = counts.get(character, 0) + 1

n_used_more_than_once = sum(1 for count in counts.values() if count &gt; 1)
n_total = len(counts)
print(f&quot;{n_used_more_than_once}/{n_total}&quot;)  # 4576/9293
# print([c for c in counts if counts[c] &gt; 1])
</code></pre>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-27T06:22:38.073Z
Nice!  I took this code and made a plot: [log y-axis](https://i.sstatic.net/A9Uxf.jpg); [linear y-axis (zoomed in)](https://i.sstatic.net/Ltmue.jpg).
Becky 李蓓
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-26T06:10:54.107Z
2024-03-26T06:10:54.107Z
kyc
<p>After looking around, it seems that newest edition of 现代汉语词典 has around 13000 single character entries and a total of around 70000 entries. The 1981 paper is likely referring to the first edition published 1978 which contained around 56000 total entries. (<a href="http://ling.cass.cn/bscd/202110/t20211028_5370106.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://ling.cass.cn/bscd/202110/t20211028_5370106.html</a>)</p>
<p>While 3000 is certainly only around 20 percentage, it is not entirely unlikely that the number of characters which occur multiple times is too far off. If we think about why certain characters may appear more than once, it must be due to the fact that they are commonly used in everyday speech, or they exist in more than one 组词. In fact, from (<a href="https://www.gov.cn/zwgk/2013-08/19/content_2469793.htm" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.gov.cn/zwgk/2013-08/19/content_2469793.htm</a>), there is a list of &quot;everyday words&quot; which the government recommends everyone to learn and the first category (the most common) contains roughly 3500.</p>
<p>If you have an online text copy of the dictionary, I could write and run some code for you if you wanted more exact numbers.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-25T18:05:05.187Z
2024-03-25T18:05:05.187Z
summer7
<p>My question is motivated by the following quote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Guān and Tián, in a preliminary survey of this kind found that in the Xiàndài hànyǔ cídίǎn (see section 7.9), 1,972 characters occur in five or more combinations, and that 1,094 occur in two to four combinations for a total of 3,066.<br />
<sub>Jerry Norman, <em>Chinese</em>, 1988.  (<a href="http://ereserve.library.utah.edu/Annual/HIST/3500/Thatcher/chinese.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">pdf</a>; see page 73)</sub></p>
</blockquote>
<p>(Section 7.9 introduces the dictionary 现代汉语词典, and I couldn't track down the cited paper [Guān Ĕrjiā and Tián Lín 1981. Rúhé shíxiàn hànzì biāozhŭnhuà. Zhongguo Yuwen 2, 147–53] at <a href="http://www.zgyw.org.cn/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">中国语文</a>, so these seem to be dead ends.)</p>
<p>I'm just wondering if the claim is true.</p>
<p><strong>Question</strong>: Do only about 3000 Chinese characters occur in more than one word in the dictionary 现代汉语词典?</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-24T10:54:49.073Z
I believe so, some characters appear in dozens of words, for example,   安定，肯定，穩定，定期，定額，必定，確定，定性，內定，不定，定時，篤定，定律，界定，擬定，定義， on the other hand, many characters only come up in specific terms
Tang Ho
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-25T20:25:54.520Z
Some sources say that modern Chinese has about 100,000 words which are made from various combinations of around 7,000 characters.  Would it be 3,000 characters instead of 7,000? It is quite possible as some people claim that the Oxford English Dictionary has about 170,000 words while English only has 26 standard letters: }
r13
<characters><word><dictionary>
Do only about 3000 Chinese characters occur in more than one word in the dictionary 现代汉语词典?
# Do only about 3000 Chinese characters occur in more than one word in the dictionary 现代汉语词典?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2024-03-24)

My question is motivated by the following quote:

> Guān and Tián, in a preliminary survey of this kind found that in the Xiàndài hànyǔ cídίǎn (see section 7.9), 1,972 characters occur in five or more combinations, and that 1,094 occur in two to four combinations for a total of 3,066.  
> Jerry Norman, *Chinese*, 1988. ([pdf](http://ereserve.library.utah.edu/Annual/HIST/3500/Thatcher/chinese.pdf); see page 73)

(Section 7.9 introduces the dictionary 现代汉语词典, and I couldn't track down the cited paper [Guān Ĕrjiā and Tián Lín 1981. Rúhé shíxiàn hànzì biāozhŭnhuà. Zhongguo Yuwen 2, 147–53] at [中国语文](http://www.zgyw.org.cn/), so these seem to be dead ends.)

I'm just wondering if the claim is true.

**Question**: Do only about 3000 Chinese characters occur in more than one word in the dictionary 现代汉语词典?

**Tags:** characters, word, dictionary

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: I believe so, some characters appear in dozens of words, for example,   安定，肯定，穩定，定期，定額，必定，確定，定性，內定，不定，定時，篤定，定律，界定，擬定，定義， on the other hand, many characters only come up in specific terms  
> **username_2**: Some sources say that modern Chinese has about 100,000 words which are made from various combinations of around 7,000 characters.  Would it be 3,000 characters instead of 7,000? It is quite possible as some people claim that the Oxford English Dictionary has about 170,000 words while English only has 26 standard letters: }  

---

## 2 answers

### Answer by username_3 on 2024-03-26. Score: 1 | Accepted answer

Based on [《现代汉语词典》第7版 on GitHub](https://github.com/CNMan/XDHYCD7th), I found 4576 characters used in more than one word. Note that this source file is probably different from 《现代汉语词典》第7版 and definitely different from the one in their claim.

My Python code is below.

```
import re

import requests

url = "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CNMan/XDHYCD7th/master/XDHYCD7th.txt"
txt = requests.get(url).text
pattern = re.compile(r"^【(.*?)】")
counts: dict[str, int] = {}

for line in txt.splitlines():
    match = pattern.search(line)
    if not match:
        continue
    word = match.group(1)  # find words in 【】
    if len(word) == 1 and word[0] not in counts:
        # Ignore single characters
        counts[word[0]] = 0
    if len(word) > 1:
        # Ignore repetitive characters
        for character in set(word):
            counts[character] = counts.get(character, 0) + 1

n_used_more_than_once = sum(1 for count in counts.values() if count > 1)
n_total = len(counts)
print(f"{n_used_more_than_once}/{n_total}")  # 4576/9293
# print([c for c in counts if counts[c] > 1])

```

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Nice!  I took this code and made a plot: [log y-axis](https://i.sstatic.net/A9Uxf.jpg); [linear y-axis (zoomed in)](https://i.sstatic.net/Ltmue.jpg).  

---

### Answer by username_4 on 2024-03-25. Score: 1

After looking around, it seems that newest edition of 现代汉语词典 has around 13000 single character entries and a total of around 70000 entries. The 1981 paper is likely referring to the first edition published 1978 which contained around 56000 total entries. (<http://ling.cass.cn/bscd/202110/t20211028_5370106.html>)

While 3000 is certainly only around 20 percentage, it is not entirely unlikely that the number of characters which occur multiple times is too far off. If we think about why certain characters may appear more than once, it must be due to the fact that they are commonly used in everyday speech, or they exist in more than one 组词. In fact, from (<https://www.gov.cn/zwgk/2013-08/19/content_2469793.htm>), there is a list of "everyday words" which the government recommends everyone to learn and the first category (the most common) contains roughly 3500.

If you have an online text copy of the dictionary, I could write and run some code for you if you wanted more exact numbers.


---

