How many words to speak chinese at a level comparable to level B2 of the Common European Framework?

[mikchen]

Hi,

I'm "just" wondering how many words (not characters) a foreigner need to speak Chinese at a level comparable to B2 of the Common European Framework. This level means that a student "can understand the main ideas (missing more specific details) of complex texts on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in his/her field of specialisation. Can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party (not stopping the conversion after few phrases because of the incapacity to understand what the native speaker is saying) . Can produce clear, detailed texts on a wide range of subjects and explain a viewpoint on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options". This level is the most important as it signs the point where a student becomes able to use the language for his academic/professional purposes (even if sometimes is necessary to use reference tools to understand some keywords).

The new Hsk table of equivalence, says that with just 1200 words one can get level B2, 2500 words for level C1. What they say is practically impossible! I've read several books, it's said that the most common 3000 words are necessary for level B1 (to give an example, the vocabulary lists for the Preliminary English Test B1 and Zertifikat Deutsch B1 (German Language Examination) cover 3000 words), 4500/5000 words for level B2, 6000/6500 words for level C1 (this level means that a student can understand a wide range (but not all) of demanding, longer texts, and recognise implicit meaning. Can express him/herself fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions. Can use language flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional purposes. Can produce clear, well-structured, detailed text on complex subjects, showing controlled use of organisational patterns, connectors and cohesive devices.

My question is:

Is it possible to use this equivalence "B2= 4500/5000 words; C1= 6000/6500 words" for the Chinese Language? Being Chinese so different in terms of lexicon from the European languages, do we need to learn more words to reach these levels? If yes, how many? How did you reach this level?

I'd like to receive answers from all the people who have already reached a level comparable to the descriptions above, all the people who can understand the majority of Chinese TV news programs or newspapers, even if they miss part of what is said or written (the part the is not necessary to understand the overall message) and even if they still struggle to understand everything is said in Chinese movies or fiction.

I'm Italian, I speak English for my academic and professional purposes, I got the Certificate in Advanced English (level C1) three years ago but sometimes still struggle to understand English movies, colloquial expressions or famous pieces of fiction. However, I can use the language for my purposes without too many problems. I'd like to reach a similar level in the Chinese language, is it a dream impossible to reach? I know the Chinese Grammar, something like 2000 chinese words, I've been living for five months in Shanghai, but I'm still wondering which is the vocabulary threshold to say: Even if some little problems I can speak Chinese and interact with the Chinese world not just like a beginner or a lower-intermediate student does.

Thanks you all!

[Sarevok]

The new Hsk table of equivalence, says that with just 1200 words one can get level B2, 2500 words for level C1. What they say is practically impossible!

See this post and the following discussion...

I also tend to consider the New HSK to be a joke - especially that part, where they present how the New HSK levels correspond to the CEFR levels.

Is it possible to use this equivalence "B2= 4500/5000 words; C1= 6000/6500 words" for the Chinese Language? Being Chinese so different in terms of lexicon from the European languages, do we need to learn more words to reach these levels? If yes, how many? How did you reach this level?

I would say Chinese is more demanding in the vocabulary area, since there are no cognates - even though those can be misleading sometimes, I think all those Latin-based words made my life easier while learning English and German (and I suppose the same goes for the other major European languages). There is also quite a big gap between the colloquial and the formal/literary language in Chinese and each expresses some of the same concepts and ideas differently, which means there is a lot of synonyms, which you have to know at least passively if you want to understand the language used in different situations - let's say various announcements which tend to be very formal in style... or news on TV or radio which is basically written language read aloud and recorded. Then you have expressions coming from various dialects, some of which might not even be part of the Standard Mandarin, but you still encounter them on daily basis if you live in China. And after you get the basic vocabulary down, there are heaps of chengyu and other idioms waiting for you to study (most of which constitute a single lexical unit and can therefore be counted as words). And I could go on and on :ph34r: Some of this may even surpass the scope of CEFR vocabulary requirements, but all in all serves to demonstrate the difficulties associated with vocabulary study in Chinese...

Here is also some interesting discussion related to this topic (some interesting statistics in there).

[gato]

The Old HSK vocab list below has 8000 words, divided into four levels. The four levels together are supposed to be minimum needed for the old HSK Advanced Level test. You would probably still need to know more words to comfortably read newspapers (most of which are targeted at a 9th, 10th-grade level of literacy).

http://hskflashcards.com/download.php

HSK flashcard files

See these threads below for more:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/28025-how-many-words-does-an-average-native-speaker-know/

How many words does an average native speaker know?

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/27963-amount-of-language-study-for-history-masters/

Amount of Language Study for History Masters

[mikchen]

Well,

I got your points. I know there are many chengyus, synonyms etc. But my question is not how to reach "the perfect level", my question is how to reach a "workable" level (naturally not as an interpreter), and I'd like to receive answers from people who already speak chinese at this workable level. I can imagine that I need all the HSK 8000 words, 20000 words, just 3000 words, all the chengyus, just 100 chengyus....but it's just my "imagination". If somebody, to give an example, asks me how many words are necessary to speak English, I answer: "3000 to 4000 words" (not 15000/20000 as a native speaker) can give you the possibility to work without problems, perhaps, in addition, you should learn some lexicon typical of your area of specialization. I can add: it's not so important to learn phrasal verbs, as I can understand their meaning from the context.... Well, I'd like to receive this kind of answers for the Chinese Language, answers based on personal experience. Speaking "perfect English, Italian, French is impossible for foreigners". I ALWAYS find errors in foreigners speaking ITALIAN, it's normal, but at the same time I understand what they want to say, and they understand what I want to say. So, how many words are necessary to reach this level in Chinese?

Another point to add: learning words means (at least to reach this level) learning the MOST COMMON WORDS. I remember a terrible BOOK, Hanyu Jiaocheng (the most used book in China), that teaches 3000 words, but not the most common (long lists of all kinds of fruit, or furniture...). Well I think that this make a great difference too. This is, perhaps, the greatest problem to learn the language: poor, bad, ancient books.

Gato and Sarevok, which is your level in terms of competencies now? how did you reach this level? Could you give me some advice?

[mikchen]

Trying to find an answer to my question I found that:

In English, according to the CEF, for level

A2 are necessary 2000 words (that cover about 80% of a text) (THESE ARE THE "HIGH FREQUENCY WORDS")

B1= 3000 words that cover 84% of a text

B2= 4000 words that cover 86,8%

C1= 4500/5000 words that cover 88,7% of a text

With novels for young people the coverage rate is higher.

(Francis and Kucera, 1982)

Being these "coverage rates" the most important aspects to determine the level of comprehension

In Chinese

80% of a text is covered by 3100 words (so this number of words should mean a level comparable to A2)

84% of a text is covered by 4100 words (a level comparable to B1)

86,8% of a text is covered by 5300 (a level comparable to B2)

88,7% is covered by 6500 words (a level comparable to C1)

(the file attached with the accumulated frequency of Chinese Words is also downloadable at http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0010729)

A book by Cambridge University Press (Learning vocabulary in another language) adds that "to read with minimal disturbance from unknown vocabulary, language users probably need a vocabulary of 15,000 to 20,000 words.However, I guess such a high number of words is necessary to read things like important books by famous authors....etc...etc..., not just to get a "workable level of language".

What do you think?

journal.pone.0010729.s002.zip

[gato]

At 88% coverage, you have an average of one unknown word per sentence, and 20 to 30 unknown words per page. It will still be fairly difficult in getting through the material at that rate.

I found this from an old post of mine.

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/28025-how-many-words-does-an-average-native-speaker-know/page__view__findpost__p__226526

Here are some estimates by researchers of vocabulary sizes of college-level native speakers. They use "word families" as a measurement, instead of "words".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocabulary#Reading_vocabulary

Native-language vocabulary

Native speakers' vocabularies vary widely within a language, and are especially dependent on the level of the speaker's education. A 1995 study estimated the vocabulary size of college-educated speakers at about 17,000 word families, and that of first-year college students (high-school educated) at about 12,000.[10]

It is estimated that one needs a vocabulary of about 10,000 word families to read a general college-level text:

http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=ugT6ImoQO-8C&lpg=PA143&ots=DwKDixqKi1&dq=Schmitt%2015000%20words&hl=en&pg=PA144#v=onepage&q&f=false

Vocabulary in language teaching By Norbert Schmitt

[anonymoose]

The majority of my Chinese has been self taught, firstly from books before coming to China, and subsequently mainly through practice. As I have not followed any structured curriculum, it is really difficult for me to estimate how many words I know, although I can comfortably use at least 4000 characters and probably have a recognition of a fair few more. Reading newspapers is no problem. I tend not to read literary works much, but from what I have read, I can understand most of modern literature without recourse to a dictionary. On the other hand, works like Hong Lou Meng are still incomprehensible to me. As for listening, I can understand most things spoken clearly, so news broadcasts are not too difficult, but movies and the like may still be a little difficult to understand.

Compared with most languages, I think Chinese has a richer vocabulary. Also, given the traditional monosyllabic nature of Chinese, many "words" are often constructed ad-hoc out of individual characters, the meaning of which would be obvious to a native speaker, but may cause consternation amongst learners. Therefore one does need to have a fairly large vocabulary before one can really start to understand the majority of what one encounters. However, I don't think it's really possible to put a figure on the number of words one needs to know. I mean, 5000 words would be a good start for an intermediate level, but that doesn't mean that you won't understand anything at 4900 or that everything will become clear at 5100. From my own experience, I can't say that there ever was a threshold to understanding Chinese. It is just a continuum from understanding nothing to beginning to understand the basics, to being able to understand the complexities.

Since learning Chinese has purely been a hobby for me, I have never felt any pressure to reach certain targets. This has been an important factor in being able to sustain it. I think if it becomes a chore for you, then it would be too easy to loose motivation to learn. So I suggest you go easier on yourself and put more effort into actually using and enjoying your existing knowledge and slowly build upon that, rather then worrying too much about reaching arbitrary targets. And learning Chinese is a long process. I have been learning for several years, so it's not like I reached this level after just a few months.

[gato]

There are some good research articles on the personal web sites of Paul Nation and Norbert Schmitt, two leading researchers in language learning.

http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/staff/paul-nation-pubsdate.aspx

Paul Nation

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/~aezweb/research/cral/doku.php?id=people:schmitt

Norbert Schmitt

Some interesting articles:

http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/staff/Publications/paul-nation/2006-How-large-a-vocab.pdf

Nation, I.S.P. How large a vocabulary is needed for reading and listening?

http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/samples/cam031/97042211.pdf

Paul Nation, Robert Waring: Vocabulary Size, Text Coverage and Word Lists

http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/staff/Publications/paul-nation/2005-Extensive-reading-RELC.pdf

Nation, I.S.P. (2005) Vocabulary learning through extensive reading.

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/~aezweb/research/cral/lib/exe/fetch.php?id=people%3Aschmitt&cache=cache&media=people:schmitt:ltr_learning_overview.pdf

Schmitt, N. (2008). Instructed Second Language Vocabulary Learning.

[mikchen]

Thank you Gato and anonymoose,

your posts are great. First of all I understood that it's possible to achieve a "decent level" of language knowledge, there are so many people around saying the contrary, saying that for European people it's impossible to speak Chinese. Moreover what I understood is that after the basics (an intermediate level achievable with something like 3000 to 5000 words) one should focus on reading authentic materials. However, these materials should be chosen on the basis of our interests/necessities. For example, after reading Chinese newspapers for a year maybe I probably won't have big problems continuing to read that kind of materials, but I would have problems If I chose to read the Hong Lou Meng. If I read the Hong Lou Meng, I won't have problems to read other classical books, but I would have problems to read newspapers. Just reading newspapers, I will have problems to understand the colloquial language (used in films)...

The same happens with Italians learning English. Some friends of mine learned English watching movies, as a result they have problems reading books or newspapers. I learned English reading, as a result I have problems watching movies...

[renzhe]

I agree with anonymoose.

I'd put the imaginary limit at about 10,000 words and 3,500 characters (that's roughly where I am now). Assuming that you don't neglect other parts of the language in the process, of course.

There's still lots to learn, but it's possible to use the language in many situations instead of fighting through it. Sometimes, you still have to fight with it.

[rezaf]

25000 words for getting close to a native speaker's level.

[cingia]

I would say:

 

B1 - 4000 to 5000 words   The 5000 most common chinese words cover, according to Lancaster University researchers, 86,17% of a text. 86,17% is enough to begin to read material written for native speakers with "a lot of" dictionary help (15 to 30 new words per page);

 

B2 - 8000 to 9000 words  This was the number required by the old HSK advanced test. In the introduction to "The Routledge Intermediate chinese reader" 9000 words are indicated as necessary to read newspapers and magazines with "some" dictionary help. According to Lancaster University, 9000 chinese words = 91,42% of a text (10 to 15 new words per page);

 

C1 - 9000 to 15000 words This is not only the number of words you find in a pocket dictionary (pocket dictionaries tend to include all the "very" most common words, so...maybe all the words essentials to be considered a fluent speaker ;-)) , but it's also the number that Paul Nation mentions in his research.

 

However, let me say that the any attempt to define with certainty the number of words required for each level of the CEFR is destined to fail. There is a great debate about the CEFR. You can google questions as "How is a C1 learner different from a B2 learner?", or you can read about the new "Cambridge english scale" (Cambridge University argues thas level B1 and B2 tend to overlap, the same for level B2 and C1, and level C1 and C2; so they have created a new system to asess English learners' abilities). Said that, I would rely, then, on the more traditional "beginner, intermediate and advanced" classification.

 

Beginner: From 0 to 5000 words or, if you prefer, CEFR A1, A2, B1, B1+. In simple words: just the basics, serious material (newspapers etc.) is very difficult at this stage;

 

Intermediate: from 5000 to 9000 words CEFR B2, B2+, C1-. In simple words: the ability to get the gist - general meaning - of serious writing, speech and conversation;

 

Advanced: from 9000 words to 20000 words (or even more) CEFR C1, C2, C2+. In simple words: the ability to understand arguments and opinions without serious misunderstanding; the ability to pick up nuances of meaning etc.