How good was your speaking and listening skills after HSK 4 and 5

[Qiaoen]

Hello all,

 

I've been self studying mandarin for about 4 years and I'm pretty happy with my progress. It was the first language I've learned and I  had to do a lot of trial and error to figure out what worked for me. I did a lot of reading and conversation practice over the years and would say I have a good recognition of about 4000 of 5000 hsk 6 words. I can probably use about 2000 of those comfortably.  I'm really comfortable talking about everyday stuff and things like plans, likes, dislikes, hobbies, wants etc. I could even venture into some non everyday topics from time to time. My listening skills aren't as good as my reading skills. If you're familiar with Chinesepod, I currently listen to upper intermediate lessons. However, I have to study the specialized vocabulary in each section before I'm able to understand it. I probably can follow about 50% of the full lessons where the hosts talk about the lessons (not the recorded lesson itself). I study about 2-3 hours of day. Mainly Focusing on listening and having conversations with my tutor. I took the hsk 3 about three years ago but haven't taken anything since then. If I had to guess, I could probably take hsk 4 right now and even the hsk 5 if I prepared for a month. However, I don't feel like I'm at the level I should be at. What I mean is, people often say that you have a really good handle on the language when you're close to hsk 5. You can be admitted to some mandarin speaking universities, I've heard of people who have employment in all mandarin speaking environments, etc. I don't think I could do any of that stuff at this point. I could get by with the basics and more, but would not be able to speak, listen or really participate in a LOT of native conversations. For example, I don't understand very much of mandarin speaking tv shows. 

 

So so my question is, how good were you at the hsk 5 level? Could you participate in most native conversations without really slowing down the native ? Would you have been able to work in a mandarin speaking environment and done well? School, etc? I'm not saying you understood specialized vocabulary, but could you do more than get by at that time ? I'm hoping to gauge where am I so I can see if I need to rethink my current approach. 

 

Thanks

[Qiaoen]

Hello all, 

 

I would love love to hear anyone's thoughts on this. Or if you like me to word the question in a different way, please let me know. 

[thechamp]

I was at a point where I had a month to prepare for HSK 5 or HSK 6 and initially my teacher when I turned up at the school (in Yangshuo) recommended I go for HSK 6 but then we both decided I'd need a couple of months for that, so I just took 5. After that I was able to work in a Chinese office in a company that did 'resource management' so basically putting small companies together and then trying to do IPOs on the HK stock exchange. I would say after HSK 5 I was basically comfortable with most everyday conversations outside of very slangy things. I got to a point after working there for a month or so where I could also understand basically everything going on at meetings (partly because I always had a notebook and would jot down any word I didn't recognise, and look it up later).

 

I think school on the other hand would be much harder. You would be reading a lot and for me I can read Chinese at a pretty advanced level, but not for the duration I could read the same content in English. Also, as for writing academically myself - forget it.

If people now ask me how my Chinese is I say 'functionally fluent' or 'professionally fluent'. If I meet Chinese speakers back in England I have no problem saying anything I want to say, but I would struggle with more technical stuff like a detailed email about something work related. I could bang it out but it would probably be a bit weird to a native speaker.

[HerrPetersen]

I have been on a break from learning Chinese for half a year, but took the HSK4 (and passed with 90+ percent) and somewhat prepared to take HSK5 but life got in the way. I have to say I was very dissapointed at how low my level was. But I believe that is mostly because I was in an environment where I pretty much only self-studied and hardly communicated with real people. Watching anything above children level on tv still seemed like a waste of time, because I would only catch the most basic phrases.

[stapler]

For what it's worth I think the HSK 5 is a beginners test. If you can pass it I think that person would be well developed beginner. HSK6 someone might finally be getting on to a kind of lower intermediate level in terms of being able to use the language in a real language environment. I think after an HSK5 you would still struggle in a Mandarin speaking workplace. 

[somethingfunny]

I think you're being a little overly harsh stapler.  I think HSK 5 is the first of the tests with any significant meaning, but I wouldn't put it at well developed beginner.

 

Firstly, HSK doesn't test spoken ability so there is essentially no indication of that skill from taking any of the tests - you could be mute and still pass HSK 6 with 100%.  Secondly, the test can be studied for in quite an effective manner and so someone who passes a high HSK level might be able to listen to one minute conversations and answer questions on it, but probably wouldn't be able to 唠嗑 with a taxi driver.  For what its worth, I took HSK 5 after about two years, at which point I thought I was pretty hot stuff - three years later I realise I was pretty useless, and still am.  I'd expect someone with 80% on HSK 5 to be able to easily hold a daily conversation, follow a work meeting (without contributing) and use wechat easily.  But, as there is no spoken element, you end up with a wide spectrum of actual abilities within each band.

[roddy]

If you agree with the Germans (scroll down for something in a reasonable language, then further for English) that the HSK 5 is equivalent to the CEFR B1 level (Intermediate), then you can look at the CEFR descriptors to see where you *should* be. That last link is the first time I've seen 'Interaction' and 'Production' described separately.

 

 

[Lumbering Ox]

18 hours ago, roddy said:

If you agree with the Germans (scroll down for something in a reasonable language, then further for English) that the HSK 5 is equivalent to the CEFR B1 level (Intermediate), then you can look at the CEFR descriptors to see where you *should* be. That last link is the first time I've seen 'Interaction' and 'Production' described separately.

 

That last link had some nice information in it. It is so being saved.

The first pdf mentioned that A1 requires 500 words, A2 1000, and B1 2000. Would it be fair to assume a continued doubling to 8 and 16K for C1 and C2? I know the Russian test requires 8K for active vocab and IIRC about 20K for passive. Such information is very difficult to find.

 

 

[Publius]

32 minutes ago, BrianP said:

Would it be fair to assume a continued doubling to 8 and 16K for C1 and C2?

Seems a reasonable assumption. I know the Japanese test JLPT N1 level, which is equivalent to C1 according to Wikipedia, requires about 8K vocab.

[Wurstmann]

My speaking was and is still horrible. Mostly because I don't practice. I think it's quite common for the four skills to be in that order: Reading > Listening > Writing > Speaking.

(More like Reading > Listening >>> Writing >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Speaking for me. One of my HelloTalk partners told me that I had the best Chinese of any foreigner she's ever met...until we met in person xD)

 

So if you listen and speak a lot you should be able to get quite far with HSK5.

[laurenth]

21 hours ago, somethingfunny said:

you could be mute and still pass HSK 6 with 100%.  

 

Conversely, you could have decent conversational skills and fail the HSK3 miserably, because you can't pass the HSK  without being able to read characters.

[歐博思]

I failed the HSK 6 a few years back, but I was able to pass the HSKK Advanced speaking test fairly easily. Granted, I subsist on a diet of purely shadowing favorite TV shows, and I'm definitely Speaking>Reading>Listening>Writing; the many sliiightly misspelled characters on the HSK 6 writing section was of course what got me. 

 

*were*