Most common SPOKEN words

[Ed Log]

Does anyone have a comprehensive list of the most common spoken words in Chinese. There are loads of lists of most common words but these are all for the written language as far as I can tell. Again looking for a ranked list of most common SPOKEN words.

Thanks

[Hofmann]

Data for such a list would be difficult to get. Why would you find that character frequencies for spoken Mandarin and Vernacular Chinese differ significantly?

[imron]

The Junda character frequency statistics provide separate statistics for imaginative texts compared to informative texts. I imagine there would be a significant difference again for spoken usage.

[roddy]

OP is looking for words, not characters.

[ChouDoufu]

I've been looking for similar data recently and haven't found anything yet. Such data would need to be based off of a spoken Chinese Corpus. But I haven't found such a corpus. Most spoken corpora are based off of news transcripts, unscripted interview shows, and occasionally recorded family conversations and business meetings.

I don't know if such data has been compiled in a systematic way for the Chinese language. I believe LDC has some Chinese corpora based on news show transcripts, but that's not a cheap solution. If you find something, let me know.

[roddy]

If anyone wants to try and hunt something down, there are some good links to start with here.

[victorhart]

My serious answer would be to search for existing word corpora, and, if no satisfactory ones exist, find someone with up-to-date basic data analysis skills, gather a bunch of transcripts, and make your own. I myself will do this at some point, but right now, I'm studying Mandarin with a funky method, rather than thinking seriously about an ideal learning approach (which might involve word and character frequency analysis).

 

My tongue-in-cheek answer, however, is:

The Power of Hao 好

Over appetizers of hummus and baba ghanoush in Riyadh, I asked two Chinese colleagues, “What’s the most frequently used word in Mandarin?” They were uncertain but ventured a couple of guesses. “No,” I disagreed, “but I know what it is.”

I’ve never looked at a Mandarin word corpus, nor have I ever researched the question at all. I’ve never even done a Google search. Nonetheless, I brashly affirm: The most frequently used word in Mandarin is:

HAO 好

 

Read more . . .

[Shelley]

I wonder if anyone is still interested after nearly 10 years, wonder if the words change with time. It wouldn't surprise me all languages evolve.

[大块头]

19 hours ago, victorhart said:

My serious answer would be to search for existing word corpora, and, if no satisfactory ones exist, find someone with up-to-date basic data analysis skills, gather a bunch of transcripts, and make your own.

 

This was done about a year after this thread started by researchers analyzing movie and TV subtitles. 

http://crr.ugent.be/programs-data/subtitle-frequencies/subtlex-ch

[Shelley]

Having time to think about it I would say 很 is up there near the top.

[DavyJonesLocker]

These lists by K. J. Chen and the CKIP Group of the Academia Sinica may help

 

thread is nearly ten years old but still a popular question I'd imagine

 

 

 

[imron]

On 9/23/2018 at 4:17 AM, victorhart said:

The most frequently used word in Mandarin is:

HAO 好

 

13 hours ago, Shelley said:

Having time to think about it I would say 很 is up there near the top.

 

Well according to both the character and word frequencies of Subtlex, it's neither of these.

 

好 just scrapes in to the top 10 by word and top 15 by characters, and 很 makes it in to the top 25 by word and top 25 by character.

 

Here are the top 10 rankings first by word:

 

的
我
你
是
了
不
在
他
我们
好

 

And now by character:

 

我
的
你
是
了
不
们
这
一
他