<p>Children usually go to grade 1 at the age of 6 or 7 in China.</p>

<p>According to "<a href="http://baike.baidu.com/view/3568694.htm#2_2" rel="noreferrer">全日制义务教育语文课程标准</a>", the character number that children should learn is:</p>

<p>Grade 1 to Grade 2: can <strong>read 1600</strong> characters, and <strong>write 800</strong> characters;</p>

<p>Grade 3 to Grade 4: can <strong>read 2500</strong> characters, and <strong>write 2000</strong> characters;</p>

<p>Grade 5 to Grade 6: can <strong>read 3000</strong> characters, and <strong>write 2500</strong> characters;</p>

<p>Grade 7 to Grade 9: can <strong>read 3500</strong> characters, and <strong>write 3000</strong> characters.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-02-12T22:52:13.820Z
Apparently ＂教学汉字规范手册＂（人民出版社，北京１９９８）contains above mentioned ３５００ characters
目录摘要：第二部分。。。 ４１，２５００个常用汉字分析。。。４３，１０００个次常用汉字分析。。。６４３，３５００字汉语拼音字母顺序表。。。８８５，编后。。。９２７
user6065
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-27T09:59:12.793Z
2016-02-15T07:54:18.950Z
2016-02-15T07:54:18.950Z
zz22
<p>Children go to grade 1 at the age of 7 and when they graduated from the primary school (grade 6), they should know at least 2500 characters, and the target made by the China Ministry of Education is as follows:</p>

<ol>
<li>grade 1~2: learn 1600 characters</li>
<li>grade 3~6: learn 900 characters</li>
</ol>

<p>about your 3rd question, I think it should be the time for Chinese lessons, there should be at least one Chinese lesson a day, and each lesson takes 40 minutes. you can calculate it.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-26T09:25:17.927Z
That's useful information! Do you mean that at all grades from 1 to 6, there are approximately 5 lessons of Chinese classes per week? It's still a bit unclear. At which grade the pupils know more or less enough to read, say, an article in a newspaper?
米好 '-'
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-28T00:19:19.877Z
From my education experience, there are approximately 5 lessons per week (at least, some times teachers will add extra lessons for some reasons, for example, holidays are coming, but in general, you can think 5 lessons/week). and the question about which grade the pupils can read newspaper, I think grade 3 may be a proper answer, since I have a nephew who is at grade 3, and he has no problem in reading newspapers, watching TV programs, surfing internet and playing games, children are getting smarter there years, so maybe in the future even younger pupils can read.
j5shi
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-26T01:11:27.170Z
2014-02-26T01:49:23.287Z
2014-02-26T01:49:23.287Z
j5shi
<p><a href="http://www.dzkbw.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">電子課本網</a> seems to provide content of textbooks that are used in schools in Mainland China. In particular, character lists found in <a href="http://www.dzkbw.com/books/rjb/yuwen/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">語文電子課本</a> might be useful in the context of this question.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-11-27T12:05:58.910Z
2017-11-27T12:05:58.910Z
米好 '-'
<p>Malaysia Chinese Essay Test :</p>

<p>primary school , age 7 - 12 = >120 Character; 
secondary 13 - 15 = >220;
secondary 16 - 17 = 400 - 600;
high/STPM 18 ~ 20 = >1000.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-27T09:27:26.660Z
That's the minimum BTW, for a good level essay you have higher limits.
user3992
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-27T15:13:02.763Z
Are you sure this is correct? The numbers are much lower than in other answers. And it's hard to believe that children in primary school are only required to learn 120 characters, and the minimal requirement after high school is only 1000 characters. Even the minimal literacy threshold for Chinese peasants, which is lower than for people in the cities, is 1500 characters.
米好 '-'
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-03-03T08:44:37.133Z
I think this answer means the number of characters required in an essay, not the number of characters a person knows. And it's the minimum, typical Secondary 16-17 can write over 2000 + Word essay easily.
user3992
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-27T09:08:41.843Z
2014-02-27T09:08:41.843Z
Zegwei
<p>Chinese is one of the most remarkable pieces of art in language that human kind has ever made. In elementary school, Chinese teachers ask their students to write not only correct but beautifully by printing a picture for each character. Chinese is different from other western languages such as German, French, or English because it has no alphabet. Instead, it contains 50,000 characters. If a person knows 5000 of the most commonly used characters, he or she can read a newspaper. How many characters a person knows indicates how intellectual that person is. Chinese is one of the world’s oldest languages, and its written form, like that of most languages, developed from the pictograph.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-02-12T17:45:54.777Z
I don't think this really contributes an answer to the question. It's just stating general information.
spex
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-02-12T15:38:45.213Z
2016-02-12T15:38:45.213Z
Zahra
<p>I'm looking for data that would let me estimate how much written language young Chinese at different ages know, in terms of number of characters they can read/write.</p>

<p>Examples of materials that would help answer this question:</p>

<ul>
<li>lists of characters that Chinese pupils learn at different grades at school (ideally official lists, if there are any)</li>
<li>statistics of how many new characters they learn at each grade</li>
<li>information about how many hours at every grade are dedicated exclusively to learning characters</li>
</ul>

<p>I'm interested in data from China and from other Chinese-speaking countries.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-25T22:44:26.950Z
this question appears to be off topic because it's asking about China's school system and not about the Chinese language
50-3
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-25T23:28:43.063Z
I rewrote the question to emphasise that my focus is the Chinese language (more specifically, the amount of written language known by native Chinese speakers at different ages), not the school system.
米好 '-'
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-25T23:32:16.970Z
Still very sociographical based, my close vote stands sorry
50-3
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-26T00:24:13.257Z
Hmm I think you could possibly check out the [HSK](http://www.chinesetest.cn/) and do the tests yourself and count the characters in each test. It's fairly easy to find data on which school years correspond to which tests. Though I'm not sure if HSK is mainly used by China or if it's more widespread than that.
Ming
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-26T00:39:58.200Z
You may find this question useful, there is a database that contains the HK grade level of characters: http://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/5025/analog-of-hong-kong-grade-level-for-chinese-characters
congusbongus
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-26T01:14:23.490Z
This question appears to be off-topic because it is about education adjustments' information.
xqMogvKW
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-26T09:13:45.353Z
@Ming HSK is a test of Chinese as a foreign language. I need information about character knowledge among those who speak it as a first language.
米好 '-'
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-26T09:26:45.200Z
@congusbongus Thanks, I think you should provide it as an answer.
米好 '-'
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-26T09:29:26.213Z
@CA55CE37 The question is about knowledge of written Chinese language. Any question about it needs to be somehow related to education, because - unlike spoken language - it is not acquired unconciously.
米好 '-'
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-26T10:26:16.570Z
I don't understand how people can think a question about how children learn the characters in the Chinese language is not a question about the Chinese language. If this question gets closed I urge you to simply ask it again on the linguistics.SE site with the "language acquisition" tag. Over there we do accept that questions about how langauges are learned are questions about languages.
hippietrail
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-03-03T04:53:54.690Z
I think this question is on topic because our site says it is about the Chinese language, but I am tempted to close it because it appears to be open ended. Why exactly do you need this information?
going
<characters><learning>
How many characters do Chinese pupils know at different ages?
# How many characters do Chinese pupils know at different ages?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2014-02-25)

I'm looking for data that would let me estimate how much written language young Chinese at different ages know, in terms of number of characters they can read/write.

Examples of materials that would help answer this question:

* lists of characters that Chinese pupils learn at different grades at school (ideally official lists, if there are any)
* statistics of how many new characters they learn at each grade
* information about how many hours at every grade are dedicated exclusively to learning characters

I'm interested in data from China and from other Chinese-speaking countries.

**Tags:** characters, learning
> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: this question appears to be off topic because it's asking about China's school system and not about the Chinese language  
> **username_0**: I rewrote the question to emphasise that my focus is the Chinese language (more specifically, the amount of written language known by native Chinese speakers at different ages), not the school system.  
> **username_1**: Still very sociographical based, my close vote stands sorry  
> **username_2**: Hmm I think you could possibly check out the [HSK](http://www.chinesetest.cn/) and do the tests yourself and count the characters in each test. It's fairly easy to find data on which school years correspond to which tests. Though I'm not sure if HSK is mainly used by China or if it's more widespread than that.  
> **username_3**: You may find this question useful, there is a database that contains the HK grade level of characters: http://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/5025/analog-of-hong-kong-grade-level-for-chinese-characters  
> **username_4**: This question appears to be off-topic because it is about education adjustments' information.  
> **username_0**: @Ming HSK is a test of Chinese as a foreign language. I need information about character knowledge among those who speak it as a first language.  
> **username_0**: @congusbongus Thanks, I think you should provide it as an answer.  
> **username_0**: @CA55CE37 The question is about knowledge of written Chinese language. Any question about it needs to be somehow related to education, because - unlike spoken language - it is not acquired unconciously.  
> **username_5**: I don't understand how people can think a question about how children learn the characters in the Chinese language is not a question about the Chinese language. If this question gets closed I urge you to simply ask it again on the linguistics.SE site with the "language acquisition" tag. Over there we do accept that questions about how langauges are learned are questions about languages.  
> **username_6**: I think this question is on topic because our site says it is about the Chinese language, but I am tempted to close it because it appears to be open ended. Why exactly do you need this information?  

---

## 5 answers

### Answer by username_7 on 2014-02-27. Score: 18

Children usually go to grade 1 at the age of 6 or 7 in China.

According to "[全日制义务教育语文课程标准](http://baike.baidu.com/view/3568694.htm#2_2)", the character number that children should learn is:

Grade 1 to Grade 2: can **read 1600** characters, and **write 800** characters;

Grade 3 to Grade 4: can **read 2500** characters, and **write 2000** characters;

Grade 5 to Grade 6: can **read 3000** characters, and **write 2500** characters;

Grade 7 to Grade 9: can **read 3500** characters, and **write 3000** characters.

> **Comments:**
> **username_8**: Apparently ＂教学汉字规范手册＂（人民出版社，北京１９９８）contains above mentioned ３５００ characters 目录摘要：第二部分。。。 ４１，２５００个常用汉字分析。。。４３，１０００个次常用汉字分析。。。６４３，３５００字汉语拼音字母顺序表。。。８８５，编后。。。９２７  

---

### Answer by username_9 on 2014-02-26. Score: 7

Children go to grade 1 at the age of 7 and when they graduated from the primary school (grade 6), they should know at least 2500 characters, and the target made by the China Ministry of Education is as follows:

1. grade 1~2: learn 1600 characters
2. grade 3~6: learn 900 characters

about your 3rd question, I think it should be the time for Chinese lessons, there should be at least one Chinese lesson a day, and each lesson takes 40 minutes. you can calculate it.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: That's useful information! Do you mean that at all grades from 1 to 6, there are approximately 5 lessons of Chinese classes per week? It's still a bit unclear. At which grade the pupils know more or less enough to read, say, an article in a newspaper?  
> **username_9**: From my education experience, there are approximately 5 lessons per week (at least, some times teachers will add extra lessons for some reasons, for example, holidays are coming, but in general, you can think 5 lessons/week). and the question about which grade the pupils can read newspaper, I think grade 3 may be a proper answer, since I have a nephew who is at grade 3, and he has no problem in reading newspapers, watching TV programs, surfing internet and playing games, children are getting smarter there years, so maybe in the future even younger pupils can read.  

---

### Answer by username_0 on 2017-11-27. Score: 1

[電子課本網](http://www.dzkbw.com/) seems to provide content of textbooks that are used in schools in Mainland China. In particular, character lists found in [語文電子課本](http://www.dzkbw.com/books/rjb/yuwen/) might be useful in the context of this question.


---

### Answer by username_10 on 2014-02-27. Score: -1

Malaysia Chinese Essay Test :

primary school , age 7 - 12 = >120 Character;
secondary 13 - 15 = >220;
secondary 16 - 17 = 400 - 600;
high/STPM 18 ~ 20 = >1000.

> **Comments:**
> **username_11**: That's the minimum BTW, for a good level essay you have higher limits.  
> **username_0**: Are you sure this is correct? The numbers are much lower than in other answers. And it's hard to believe that children in primary school are only required to learn 120 characters, and the minimal requirement after high school is only 1000 characters. Even the minimal literacy threshold for Chinese peasants, which is lower than for people in the cities, is 1500 characters.  
> **username_11**: I think this answer means the number of characters required in an essay, not the number of characters a person knows. And it's the minimum, typical Secondary 16-17 can write over 2000 + Word essay easily.  

---

### Answer by username_12 on 2016-02-12. Score: -4

Chinese is one of the most remarkable pieces of art in language that human kind has ever made. In elementary school, Chinese teachers ask their students to write not only correct but beautifully by printing a picture for each character. Chinese is different from other western languages such as German, French, or English because it has no alphabet. Instead, it contains 50,000 characters. If a person knows 5000 of the most commonly used characters, he or she can read a newspaper. How many characters a person knows indicates how intellectual that person is. Chinese is one of the world’s oldest languages, and its written form, like that of most languages, developed from the pictograph.

> **Comments:**
> **username_13**: I don't think this really contributes an answer to the question. It's just stating general information.  

---

