How are HSK Characters selected?

[agewisdom]

Hi All,

 

After going through a couple of hundred characters from HSK1 to 3 (mid-way), I have a very simple question that I'd like to ask. I tried googling and searching the forums but was unable to find anything.

 

How are the cumulative 5,000 HSK Characters selected?

(a) What's the basis of selection? Frequency? Topics? Etc.?

(b) Who did the selection? Was there any formal studies carried out or research done to select these characters?

(c) How are the 5,000 HSK Characters segmented into the respective HSK Levels?

(d) How representative are the HSK Characters in assessing actual fluency in terms of recognition of normal Chinese text etc.?

(e) Are these 5,000 HSK Characters static or are there revisions from time to time? What's the basis of revisions, if any?

(f) Any major changes on characters from the OLD HSK syllabus to the current one?

 

Just curious. Any opinions or thoughts are welcome.

[markhavemann]

There was a big revision in 2010.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanyu_Shuiping_Kaoshihttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanyu_Shuiping_Kaoshi

 

It seems to me that based on frequency. If I were to hazard a guess, the first four levels are maybe based on frequency in everyday life (maybe taken from all beginner level textbooks? That's what I would do...), while level 5 and 6 must be based mostly on news and texts/literature. 

 

Still there are some words/characters even in HSK 5 that I've never ever seen in use, and some that I've only seen in people's names (which might be why they are there??) 

[agewisdom]

2 hours ago, markhavemann said:

Still there are some words/characters even in HSK 5 that I've never ever seen in use, and some that I've only seen in people's names (which might be why they are there??) 

 

Surely those words shouldn't be there if it's only used for names?

[agewisdom]

3 hours ago, markhavemann said:

It seems to me that based on frequency. If I were to hazard a guess, the first four levels are maybe based on frequency in everyday life (maybe taken from all beginner level textbooks? That's what I would do...), while level 5 and 6 must be based mostly on news and texts/literature. 

 

You should be right, but I'm just wondering how they actually did the frequency test and what sort of text they used. Of course the arbitrary segregation of these words into HSK1-3 are the most interesting. After all, almost all these words are really basic, so why would some go to HSK1 and others to HSK3. Just some musings.

[markhavemann]

7 minutes ago, agewisdom said:

Surely those words shouldn't be there if it's only used for names?

It is possible that they expect HSK 5 and 6 to start being really well read and diving into poetry or literature, while I'm sticking to TV shows and trashy books. The one example that I can think of is 霞 which I see now is in HSK 6 and not 5 as I thought before. Still, the meaning is "red clouds" or "morning or evening glow" which is lovely but I have never come across it. The reason it stood out to me is because it was in a bunch of my students' names. I don't think I've seen it anywhere else but I imagine maybe it's in poetry or some literature that is more difficult than I dare to tackle just yet. 

 

4 minutes ago, agewisdom said:

You should be right, but I'm just wondering how they actually did the frequency test and what sort of text they used.

It's a good question and one that I've wondered about too. Hopefully somebody else can shed a little more light. 

 

6 minutes ago, agewisdom said:

Of course the arbitrary segregation of these words into HSK1-3 are the most interesting. After all, almost all these words are really basic, so why would some go to HSK1 and others to HSK3. Just some musings.

And why not just start at HSK 3 since anything below that is not particularly useful? Maybe to encourage people because it's relatively easy to pass those levels and it kind of gives you a milestone and something to work towards even as a total beginner.

 

Just thinking out loud but having each HSK level as a goal for a university semester could be a pretty good way to structure a course. HSK 1 might be a relatively realistic goal for the first semester of Chinese when students have other things going on too. HSK 5 and 6 could be each done in a year if you are doing a 4 year course like they do in most places. 

 

[agewisdom]

1 hour ago, markhavemann said:

And why not just start at HSK 3 since anything below that is not particularly useful? Maybe to encourage people because it's relatively easy to pass those levels and it kind of gives you a milestone and something to work towards even as a total beginner.

 

You're probably right at that. Still, I'm hoping they had a more scientific method to segregating the characters in HSK 1 to 3, rather than say, arbitrarily throwing the character cards into bins 1 to 3 and calling it a day!

[zander1]

3 hours ago, markhavemann said:

The one example that I can think of is 霞 which I see now is in HSK 6 and not 5 as I thought before. Still, the meaning is "red clouds" or "morning or evening glow" which is lovely but I have never come across it. T

 

I hear people say 晚霞 quite regularly to be honest, just hang around any sunset and it’ll almost definitely be said. 

[mungouk]

Has anyone actually said 黑板 since 2010...?

[Tomsima]

For the sake of clarity for anyone reading this thread who has not yet reached hsk 5/6 level: all words and characters all the way up to hsk 6 level are not geared towards literature and poetry. The vocab is every day usage and is tuned towards getting you to sound better educated in speech and writing rather than sounding 'textbooky'. The note on 霞 is a good example of this: it appears on the surface to be poetic and perhaps even 'rare' as a character, but as zander1 has noted, its very common in colloquial as in 晚霞. Now you know, I bet you'll hear it even within the coming week (if you live in China that is). HSK 6 is bare bones literacy, and all vocab is necessary and common in my opinion.

[大块头]

@hskalan did some interesting analysis of this topic.

 

Here is a comparison of the HSK word list with the SUBTLEX-CH word frequency list. Here are some other pretty graphs.

[imron]

15 hours ago, markhavemann said:

I don't think I've seen it anywhere else but I imagine maybe it's in poetry or some literature that is more difficult than I dare to tackle just yet. 

It's in the name of one of the main characters (凤霞) in《活着》which is a pretty easy read, and you'll also find it pops up from time to time in 金庸's works in a descriptive sense, e.g. 东边一片黑暗中隐隐朱霞炫晃.

[agewisdom]

2 hours ago, 大块头 said:

@hskalan did some interesting analysis of this topic.

Here is a comparison of the HSK word list with the SUBTLEX-CH word frequency list. Here are some other pretty graphs.

 

Thanks for the links. Indeed, it answers some of the question I had about the HSK Levels. Very interesting, to say the least.

[hskalan]

I’m glad I made the effort to keep that site online if at least 1 or 2 people can gain something from it.

 

As a partial answer to (f) (if hy ‘old’ you mean 2010) I have pages that look at the intersections between old/new HSK words/characters at each level, lots of clickable stuff there: http://hskhsk.pythonanywhere.com/hskwords20102018

 

Some of your questions can only really be answered by people at Hanban etc. http://hanban.org/ - on balance the HSK vocab lists seem to be pretty useful. It’s hard to come up with a single word list that would be optimal for everyone. 

 

In case you didn’t see them I also made a few charts/graphs of the HSK characters: http://www.hskhsk.com/graphs.html

 

I’ll see some of you in another 5 years when someone mentions me again ?

 

 

 

[agewisdom]

5 hours ago, hskalan said:

In case you didn’t see them I also made a few charts/graphs of the HSK characters: http://www.hskhsk.com/graphs.html

 

I’ll see some of you in another 5 years when someone mentions me again ?

 

Actually I did see the charts and graphs. And I already downloaded some of them. I think it's great. Going to try to print some of these on a few A3 sheets of paper and start gluing them together. And then paste them on a wall in my room to review the characters. It's definitely a great resource and gives a big bird eye's view on things. ?

 

Too bad, I think you stopped at HSK3 and jumped right into 6. ?

 

There's no denying that the HSK characters are useful as backed up with your graphs. I'm just curious as to how they decided to distribute the words especially since most of the characters at the lower levels of 1-3 seem essential one way or another.

 

Thanks for keeping the site up. I think the graphs are useful, but I'm going to have a hard time printing the HSK1-6 graph cos I don't think my wall is big enough

[mungouk]

3 hours ago, agewisdom said:

I don't think my wall is big enough

 

 

I prefer to use them on-screen... download an SVG file, open in a program that supports it (e.g. Firefox), then 'print' it to a PDF.

 

Then you can zoom in/out and pan around to browse using your favourite PDF viewer. 

 

 

[agewisdom]

15 hours ago, mungouk said:

Then you can zoom in/out and pan around to browse using your favourite PDF viewer. 

 

Yes, I am able to do that as well but just prefer to see everything in one big sheet. Hoping a big overview might give a better perspective.

[markhavemann]

On 2/7/2019 at 11:51 PM, zander1 said:

I hear people say 晚霞 quite regularly to be honest, just hang around any sunset and it’ll almost definitely be said. 

 

On 2/8/2019 at 2:37 AM, Tomsima said:

I bet you'll hear it even within the coming week (if you live in China that is)

 

Hilariously and as predicted, I have just come across 霞 in context for the first time ever in 鬼吹灯之精绝古城 episode 9. 

 

first in: 朝霞不出门，晚霞行万里 - which I suppose is the Chinese version of "red sky in the morning, sailor's warning. Red sky at night, sailor's delight"

 

then immediately afterwards again: "早上这火红的云霞不是什么好兆头吧"

 

Maybe I just don't spend enough time watching sunsets...

[imron]

4 hours ago, markhavemann said:

Maybe I just don't spend enough time watching sunsets...

Or maybe you just don't spend enough time watching 鬼吹灯之精绝古城