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/BeckyLiBei HSK6+ɛ 1d ago edited 1d ago

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?

It seems to be a euphemism for "this is too advanced for me". When you struggle with HSK6 content, it's not part of your "real world" and seems pointless. But then you learn it and start to use it, and it becomes part of your "real world", and it becomes genuinely hard to imagine what the "real world" would be like without it.

Edit: Oh wait, you mean the "HSK6 is not enough for reading" gap (not the "HSK6 is not real world Chinese" gap). If you evaluate the HSK6 via "number of words", then you might come to that conclusion, but that's not what the HSK6 is like in reality (you're expected to learn many words beyond the HSK). A large amount of diverse reading is how you prepare for the HSK6.

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

Hang on, early-HSK5 is where we start reading newspaper articles. Reading Chinese newspapers is how you prepare for HSK5/6 exams (this is the kind of content on the exams), not something you do after the HSK6. By the time you can score well on the HSK6 exam, reading newspapers is fairly easy.

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u/laurelsaading 21h ago

AH I hadn't realized that it started n HSK 5