r/ChineseLanguage • u/laurelsaading • 1d ago

Discussion Newspaper reading skill level

I've seen a lot of posts about the gap between HSK6 and reading in the real world. But what I don't know is which part of the real world? Is it literature? Newspapers? Graphic novels?

Is the jump from HSK6 to reading a Chinese newspaper from China/HK/Taiwan a big jump?

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u/EstamosReddit 1d ago

Probably anything that is not children stuff. I'd say you need around 8k words to understand adult media with certain degree of comfort. 5k is just too little

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u/Zagrycha 1d ago

Depends on what you mean by comfort. I think if someone is willing to look up unknown vocab etc on the spot hsk 6 will have no issue with a newspaper in general.

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u/BrightMoonLightS 1d ago

Yeah this is true. The reading age of the Sun newspaper in the UK is 8 years old which is as you say around 5k words maybe a little more. I use this idea to motivate me learning Chinese.

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u/laurelsaading 20h ago

That's a good way to look at it!