List for most frequently used characters?

[zozzen]

Chinese gov't claimed that 2000 characters are enough to be literate for working class. Do you have a list of these characters?

Thanks!

[adrianlondon]

Just ignore the bottom 1000 ;)

http://www.zein.se/patrick/3000char.html

[roddy]

Have a search for recent discussion on HSK character lists - that covers around 2200 and there won't be much difference between the two.

[renzhe]

There is some difference between them. Often it's phonetic characters and such, which are common for transcribing foreign names, but not used in many "important" words.

You can have a look at http://hmarty.free.fr/hanzi/ , they have the top 3000 sorted by frequency.

However, keep in mind that the "2000 for literacy" refers to native speakers who already know all the character combinations (words) and grammar. As a foreign speaker, learning 2000 characters will mean very little in terms of being able to "read". However, learning all the characters from the HSK set and/or the most frequent 2000 (there is significant overlap) is a good strategy.

[zozzen]

Thanks a lot. Agree that HSK is a good start!

[Hero Doug]

I believe this is the page Roddy was talking about.

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/2-favourite-chinese-musician0343

[zozzen]

yeah, i got the list, but i'm wondering if the hsk vocab list is official. I've searched over hsk 's official site but no relevant information about the list. Who was the first to compile it?

[roddy]

I don't think they've ever put it online, but it's in various HSK大纲's published by BLCU. It can be useful for the sake of breaking vocab down a bit, but I wouldn't take it as gospel. There's a similar breakdown of grammar, but I think I have the only copy in existence.

[zozzen]

BLCU published the list, does it mean that no vocab outside the list will be used in HSK exam? And roddy, by your experience, how much can you understand chinese texts and conversation after acquiring the HSK vocab?