Time required for each HSK level

[adam2073]

I'd love to know how much time each HSK level takes, in particular the highest two. I did a calculation using this site and it comes out as 96-192 hours for HSK4, which is a very wide estimate.

[arreke]

It depends on many things, some students learn faster, some slower, people are different, it's hard to predict the amount of hours you need for HSK5 and HSK6...

 

PS: It reminds me an old question - how long will it take to be able to do the splits ))

[Tomas Tomas]

i went from zero ability to passing HSK 6 @ 81% in 2.5 years.

 

6 months of doing the Heisig books, and then two years studying @ Middlebury (USA) and China (with self-study on winter and summer breaks)

 

in hours?  a lot ...

 

have done about 320,000 Anki cards as of today.

[HerrPetersen]

If you dedicate full-time to learning Chinese my guess is 1 year for HSK5. I will arbitrarily set a "full time" to 4 hours per day. That is learning new stuff and practicing. Maybe some other stuff like listening to music, watching tv or reading really easy stuff etc. comes extra. So maybe around 6 month for HSK4. 6month =(roughly) 180 days = 180*4 hours = 720 hours. Maybe this is a high estimate. But I feel your numbers (100-200) are rather low.

[Johnny20270]

seems to be under a year for HSK4 as far as I can tell for students studying in China. In my school many students take the HSK4 at about 9 months mark but lots of factors dictate the length of time

1. what score do you want, 180/300 only is a pass. I think it should be a lot higher say 240 (70%). Seems pointless otherwise. I have met several students that passed HSK 4 and their Chinese is anything but impressive to be honest. A long way off what the level HSK suggest you should be able to do

2. are you studying directly for HSK4 exam or on a general Chinese learning program. My fellow students focuses directly on HSK test for last few months so different vocab list etc  My vocab list is only about 50% HSK word

3. Are you exam cramming or do you want to actually learn the language?

 

Passing HSK5 with in a year is very much the exception from what I can tell and my teacher suggests its two years to know it properly. I don't know anyone in my school that passed HSK5 within a year.

 

I guess its similar to your university days when you just cram for exams and forget it soon after. For me I want to learn the language properly and the passage of time is important for it to register into my long term memory. But if you have limited time, need the certificate etc then its probably worth being "HSK" specific

 

@Tomas: HSK 6 in 2.5 years, impressive!

[Johnny20270]

have done about 320,000 Anki cards as of today.

 

 

just found this feature, useful.

[HerrPetersen]

I think passing HSK5 is possible for most students if you just drill through the necessary HSK anki decks. This will however not bring you even close to the HSK5 description. "... understand TV-shows, give lengthy speeches".

I have learned on and off over a long period of time. Now I am between HSK4 and 5-level (passed 4 last year). But I only manage to dedicate little time to learning Chinese. So my statement is only based on guessing how things would go if I studied full-time. Maybe 6 month are too short for HSK4. The OP's numbers are most likely too low however.