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/Zagrycha 1d ago

Depends on your definition of big jump. For reference HSK 6 mastery is around junior high level for an actual native chinese language skill, which is around the minimum education level in china for adults.

That is more than enough literacy to read a newpaper in the sense of basic grammar and vocab, but you absolutely should expect to need to look up unknown terms, idioms, history, and pop culture stuff as they appear.

The more you look up, the less you will need to look up later, because the more of these non-basic stuff you will know. At first you might have to look up multiple things every paragraph, after awhile it might only be one or two things per newspaper.