What can you read in Chinese?
More of an assessment than an exam. You’ll see real words from our frequency corpus, easiest first. Say whether you know them, and we’ll find your study level: the book level (A1–C1) one step beyond what you already know. About 2 minutes; it ends early once your level is clear.
Do you know what this means and how it’s pronounced?
Not sure? Tap Check to reveal the answer, then grade yourself honestly — the test ends early once we’ve found your level.
Why a frequency test?
Words are ranked, not random
Every test word comes from our corpus at a known frequency rank. Knowing word #5,000 tells us far more than knowing ten easy ones.
Books are graded the same way
Every book is rewritten in six graded versions using those same frequency bands — so your result maps directly to a book level.
Learning happens just beyond what you know
You pick up new words from context when the rest of the page is familiar — research puts that at roughly 95–98% of the words on the page (Hu & Nation, 2000). With less, you are decoding, not learning. Your study level sits right there, and pinyin plus a tap on any word take care of the new ones.