Details on the HSK7-9 exam are out

[becky82]

 

There are mock HSK7-9 exams on HSKMock.

[mikelove]

FWIW, I was just at a conference in Beijing on this very subject and HSKMock is from the actual HSK developers, and they confirmed to me that it uses the same algorithms as the real HSK test for stuff like evaluating your pronunciation. So it should be a very good proxy for the actual HSK7-9.

 

(and putting my Pleco hat on, we're discussing ways we can also offer these sorts of high-quality mock tests in or through our app, and that plus a couple of other HSK things are why I was at that conference)

[markhavemann]

On 11/5/2024 at 5:08 PM, becky82 said:

Edit:  I've tried purchasing this from Jingdong twice now, and they haven't sent it.  I see it's also on Taobao, so maybe I should try there instead.

The one on Taobao is only on presale, you can buy it but it will be shipped on 4 Jan 2025. Your JD screenshot says they will start shipping on the 10th of December so I guess it's also just presale.

 

Makes me wonder if I should cancel my Taobao order and buy on JD instead.

[markhavemann]

A set of vocabulary books for HSK 7-9 have come out too. They're part of a set called 国际中文教育中文水平等级标准·词汇速记速练手册, which have lists for all the HSK levels.

 

I couldn't help myself and bought them on Taobao. They arrived so I made a little video about their contents and put it up here for anyone who might be interested what they are like.

 

The TLDR is they are basically a list of the new vocab in alphabetic order, divided into two books (A-M, N-Z). They've included collocations and fill in the blank questions on most pages as well as at the end of every "unit", which I thought was a nice touch. A quick comparison against the vocab lists that have been OCR'ed (which I admittedly downloaded quite a while ago) showed that some vocab in the books is not in the OCR'ed lists, like 吃不上 and 鹏程万里. It seems to largely correlate though, and probably isn't a big deal.

[becky82]

On 11/21/2024 at 1:17 PM, markhavemann said:

A quick comparison against the vocab lists that have been OCR'ed (which I admittedly downloaded quite a while ago) showed that some vocab in the books is not in the OCR'ed lists, like 吃不上 and 鹏程万里.

 

I think what happened is that we all thought the vocab was coming from 刘英林's 《汉语国际教育用词语声调组合及轻重音格式实用手册》 prior to the 3.0 standards being published.  But the 3.0 vocab was not exactly the same as in 刘英林's manual (爱 is level 1 in the official standards, while 爱 is level 2 in this 刘英林's manual).  So a few vocab lists, apps, etc., were made during that period, and haven't been corrected.

 

This HSK 3.0 vocab list seems correct: https://github.com/ivankra/hsk30  At least I haven't found any bugs yet, and I check these things.

[markhavemann]

A few days ago I noticed that the new HSK mock tests book which I preordered on Taobao a while ago was listed for a bit cheaper than I paid originally, so I messaged the seller and asked if the price was reduced. They told me to apply for a refund and buy it again at the lower rate. I did this and randomly the book was shipped immediately and arrived yesterday.

 

I'm still working on tracking down the audio files for the listening part, and the translation section seems to be in Korean rather than English, but beyond that it looks fine.

 

Anyone else who preordered might want to either contact the seller and remind them to ship, or just cancel their order and reorder from Taobao. I'll post the audio files once I've found them. 

 

It's this book (this is from the internet because I'm too lazy to take an actual photo)

 

 

[becky82]

Thanks, I went and ordered it again.  I'd be a bit annoyed if I can't access audio (there's no QR code?).  I think ChatGPT should be able to translate both the written and spoken Korean into English for me to translate into Chinese.

[markhavemann]

On 1/15/2025 at 4:50 PM, becky82 said:

Thanks, I went and ordered it again.  I'd be a bit annoyed if I can't access audio (there's no QR code?).

After a bit of looking around I found the phone number of the editor in the front of the book so I called it. She was super nice and pointed out that there is a little QR code by the translation part in each test, with audio and translations in languages besides Korean (including English).  

 

It takes you to a WeChat mini app (小程序) which is a bit slow and has no option to download the audio which is a little annoying for me. I managed to download it as MP3 anyway and downloaded all the PDF's for the translation parts. I think the audio files might be too big to upload as attachments on a Chinese-Forums post (~23mb) so I'll put them up on YouTube and post a link in the morning when I have time. 

[liqi]

Does anyone knows if there's any exams from HSK3.0 besides the 7-9 one? Interestingly, the other day I tested out hsklevel out of boredom and it put me at HSK5 for 2.0 and HSK7-9 for 3.0, which I found quite surprising. Maybe I should buy it too to test it out, hopefully the HSK3.0 made me smarter 😆. I've bought the new books they've put out recently (the ones that markhavemann posted above) which seems to be the only official HSK3.0 material so far, but so far no shipping 😕

[markhavemann]

I've put the audio up on a Youtube playlist here, I'll make a separate post with the PDF's for the translation part.

 

On 1/16/2025 at 5:06 PM, liqi said:

Does anyone knows if there's any exams from HSK3.0 besides the 7-9 one?

It doesn't seem like it. I did a search for new HSK and all the books that pop up were first published in 2011/2012. I don't think there's a big rush to roll out the lower levels, but I don't have much basis for saying that except the lack of new materials. It's probably also hard to make materials for a test that isn't actually out yet.

[liqi]

On 1/17/2025 at 8:17 PM, markhavemann said:

did a search for new HSK and all the books that pop up were first published in 2011/2012

They really couldn't have settled for a better naming scheme huh? Seems like such a silly name choice in retrospective. I hope they never come out with HSK4.0, at that point we'll have more names than Xbox... But yeah, expected it as such, it really seems like they lost the interest in HSK3.0 compared to a few years ago. Seemed like everything would change so fast and now we get practically no news besides a few shadowdropped books here and there

[markhavemann]

On 1/18/2025 at 1:55 PM, liqi said:

I hope they never come out with HSK4.0, at that point we'll have more names than Xbox

It might actually work quite nicely if they follow the XBOX naming conventions, "HSK 360" is at least less ambiguous than "new HSK", "new new HSK", etc.

 

On 1/18/2025 at 1:55 PM, liqi said:

Seemed like everything would change so fast and now we get practically no news besides a few shadowdropped books here and there

I seem to remember reading somewhere (probably on this site somewhere) that the guy who was in charge of HSK 3.0 passed away and that had something to do with everything slowing down. I did a quick search and couldn't find anything so I might be confusing this with something else I read.

[becky82]

I bought this book:

 

 

It describes the 379 HSK3.0 chengyu one by one, including grammar and context, and color images.  (I made a list here of the HSK3.0 chengyu, and listed 405, trying to be inclusive; some of these would not really be considered chengyu, but I wanted to make sure I didn't omit anything important.)

 

Here's a couple of photos from inside:

 

[becky82]

A quick summary of the resources available for the HSK 3.0 that I'm aware of (which I've been following closely for years) :

• Vocabulary 《词汇速记速练手册》 for levels 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7-9上, 7-9下.
• Chengyu 《成语学习手册》.
• Grammar 《语法学习手册》 for 初、中、高.
• Handwriting 《汉字书写手册》 for 初、中、高.
• Dictionary 《国际中文学习词典》 for levels 1-3 (初) and 4-6 (中).  Note the paper 《国际中文学习词典：初阶》释义指误 by 陶炼 which points out inaccuracies in the 初 dictionary.
• The new WoHuiMandarin app.
• HSKMock includes exams for HSK7-9.
• The HSK7-9 preparation book 《汉语水平考试HSK(七—九级)全真模拟题集》; Mark Havemann posted translations and links to the audio here.
• Mega Mandarin's Anki deck.
• There's a whole bunch of github pages and Anki decks with vocabulary and characters, often with a peppering of minor errors (like OCR errors, and inconsistent treatment of 儿 suffixes and entries like 爸 | 爸爸, and duplicate words).

 

I'm not aware of any textbooks akin to the HSK Standard Course but for the HSK 3.0 syllabus.

 

I've made YouTube videos about the books I've bought: Vocab level 5, level 6, levels 7-9, grammar (高 advanced), chengyu, and the new HSK7-9 prep book.  I have an old one using the WoHuiMandarin app too.