#chinese progress

[rigelmejo]

8/24/2025 Updates:

My brain not feeling underwater anymore is fucking awesome. I feel so good. I can't believe how much easier it is to understand every fucking language I've studied before. I can't believe how underwater I felt before.

Tested my French: Inner French episode I left off of last time (episode 7 on conspiray theories) was at least as comprehensible now this time. Although I felt it now takes less mental effort to pay attention and follow what's going on.

Tested my Spanish (obviously as it's most of what I've enjoyed this past week): absolutely notice it's easier now than before. I can now repeat after almost every word, figure out or already know and recall the meaning of almost every word, of Spanish Boost Gaming and Spanish Boost podcast videos. Yesterday I tried to watch a How to Spanish podcast video, because I know I could not understand that series when I started studying Spanish, and lo and behold I CAN understand at least 1 episode of How to Spanish now! The speed was a little faster than Martin from Spanish Boost, and there were definitely more unknown words. But the words still felt quite easy to parse, to figure out the unknown words from context, to quickly recognize and understand the words I know. And since I studied Spanish directly before the hospital, watched a little Spanish Boost Gaming in the hospital (because it was familiar and emotionally comforting), directly after the hospital, and now every day since getting out of the hospital, it is extremely clear to me how much my memory and recall/recognition speed are getting daily. How much my ability to figure out new words from context improves daily. It truly felt like I was underwater holding my breath feeling exhausted, trying to hear and understand stuff before. And now I am above water in the air where everything is clear sounding and I can breathe easy and am wide awake and alert.

Tested my Chinese: a few days ago with Guardian cdrama and Dashu Mandarin, recall and recognition speed was slower then. Tested my Chinese again yesterday, was better than it had ever been before. Dashu Mandarin was finally clear and easy feeling and understandable. I realized Xiaogua Chinese Upper Intermediate felt easy to me yesterday, I barely heard any new words except policy 政策 and 农村, which I could easily and quickly guess the meanings from context.

Testing my Japanese now: listening to Nihongo Con Teppei beginning episodes I have heard before multiple times, as I know for sure I understood these before the hospital. Like everything else language related, it is so much EASIER to follow what is being said - I don't need to put in as much effort, I can type or multitask while listening and still follow what's being said, I could translate these sentences if required (which is a skill I was finding too hard pre-surgery pre-hospital visit). With how much easier Japanese feels, I am wondering if I'll still feel like an upper beginner, or if I will feel like intermediate stuff is doable more now. Like I find this Yakuza Lets Play easier to follow now (although I could follow the main idea gist months ago - it just felt like way more effort to focus, to figure out word meaning from context clues, the speed of understanding felt so delayed compared to now).

I wonder how much of all this stuff I've studied, my brain was actually storing into memory, and it's just the bleeding made my memory and focus absolute shit so it felt really hard to grasp more than the overall main idea and felt like I was on a delay. Like those old school dial up internet speed, versus now on high speed internet (as in how my recall feels now). Again, it was like I was underwater hearing someone speaking to me, had run out of air, and was exhausted. Now I feel like I'm on land, breathing air and hearing with no barriers between me and the source of sound, and I've had a good night's sleep and I'm wide awake. Also... that hematoma in my brain was not just fucking up my memory, it was worsening my hearing, because my hearing simply IS better now.

Lmao so much for me testing how ALG or Comprehensible Input Lessons work for someone. My brain was so nerfed before, I think any progress I made was slower than it would normally have been for others. Also it is surprising I was able to learn at all tbh. Based on how I felt before and afte4 my surgery, I clearly did learn a LOT while my brain was nerfed, I just was having trouble recalling and recognizing those things I learned.

[rigelmejo]

A conclusion I've drawn so far from my chinese listening experiment: hours of extensive listening to things you understand the main idea of DOES improve overall listening skills.

It seems obvious, but before I started this experiment and I was trying to figure out how to improve my listening skills, I wondered if I'd need to A. listen as I read (to recognize the words better) B. re-listen to each sentence over and over until I figured it out C. listen to stuff that was Totally Understandable to start (aka Graded Reading audiobooks and textbook style dialogues where I understood 100% and they spoke slowly).

I did not end up having to do any of that - although I do think all of those strategies are helpful, as they've been helpful for me before. Instead what happened was: A. Any audio of material I could have read and understood, where I felt I couldn't parse the sentences and was just hearing isolated word/phrases in between blurs, got easier to understand the longer I JUST listened (so over time word recognition of words you 'know' from reading just will improve if you simply listen longer). B. I could just keep listening through things, I did not have to re-listen on an individual sentence level, over time listening skills improve until the sentences themselves sound slower, clearer, and it's easier to interpret all of the words together for meaning. C. I did have to start with things I could have read and understood (so I couldn't pick audio of something where the transcript would be Above my reading level), but I did not have to start with super simple listening material. I also learned I could use audio as long as I could follow SOME main ideas in it, not all, just some.

So basically, I could have been improving my listening skills so much sooner by just... extensive listening more... ToT

So... ways to apply this to your own study plans?

If you're a total beginner, just practicing regular listening occassionally - so listening to textbook dialogue audios once in a while without looking at the text, or graded reader accompanying audio after reading the text, or watching a CI Lesson like Lazy Chinese's videos once in a while, or talking with people (at a level you can understand). Intermediate - listen to learner podcasts labelled at a level you could understand or below (so ChinesePod101's Beginner and Intermediate lessons on youtube, HSK 3-4 labelled podcasts, TeaTime Chinese podcast, Maomi Chinese podcast, CI Lessons labelled for Beginners and Intermediate learners like Lazy Chinese/Blabla Chinese/Xiaogua/Lingoflow Chinese etc youtubers). When you feel like you can watch shows with the Chinese subtitles, watching them sometimes with NO subtitles to practice listening once in a while (iQiyi has a lot of good shows where subs can be turned off on their youtube videos). Any podcasts where you're reading along with the transcript, or audiobooks where you're reading along to the text chapters, try listening to once in a while without looking at the text. Continue having conversations you can understand, as you'll practice listening during those too.

[rigelmejo]

Chinese listening experiment 355 hours, words progress:

Ayyyyy. Used good old site hsklevel.com to figure out if my vocabulary has improved. It has!

Right before I started the chinese listening experiment in February 2025 I took this test, it estimated I knew ~6000 words (when I only marked words I knew the meaning and pronunciation of). Now it estimates I know ~10,000 words.

Some notes:

When seeing the hanzi, even hanzi I am rusty on reading or have not read much before, I had a WAY better mental pronunciation now. As in I correctly said their pronunciation and tone, before checking if I was right. There were a few words i marked "so-so" where I could read them but pronounced one hanzi slightly wrong (wrong initial, final, or wrong tone) or where I know I've heard them many times but only remembered their meaning vaguely.

In HSK 3.0, the majority of words I don't know are in HSK 5 and above. Which makes sense.

In TOCFL, I start not knowing a lot of words around Band B.2

In words from media I can understand, no surprise I know the MOST words in Movies and Series, with the least vocabulary related to blogs and news. Which makes sense, blogs and news are THE HARDEST MATERIALS for me to understand.

A fun chart of my progress over time. You'll see that the MOST words I knew was when I was reading a LOT of webnovels in 2023. I was marking any word learned back then if I could recognize the meaning (pronunciation did not matter to me).

The steep dip after December 2024 is because I no longer counted myself as knowing a word if I could not also remember it's pronunciation. Since 2025 I have only been counting words as known if I can recognize hanzi, and remember meaning AND pronunciation. The number around January 2025 was ~6000 words. It has now climbed to ~10,000 words. That's quite an improvement of listening skills over the past 5 months. The grey areas are non HSK words.

Even if the truth is lower than these estimates, and I imagine it is, it's cool to see this estimate increasing ovrr time. I remember when I was reading a lot, it was very motivating seeing this estimate go up after finishing another novel.

[rigelmejo]

Notes to self about progress and level of understanding:

Chinese: 595 (1142) hours

French: 8.5 hours

Spanish: 8.5 hours

Japanese: 8 hours

Peppa pig appears to be Level 4 understanding on the Dreaming Spanish roadmap. Based on what people say they understand, many people say at Level 4 they understand Peppa Pig. Level 4 is 300 hours for a language similar to ones people know. Or 600 hours for a language less like ones you know.

Chinese peppa pig: I understand by only listening, very easy. This feels as easy as listening to English. I am almost Level 5 on the Dreaming Spanish Roadmap doubled for Mandarin. So it makes sense this would be easy, and now regular dubbed cartoons for kids to teens and some easier shows for adults (like iPartment) are easy to doable.

French peppa pig: I understand if I look at the video. I do not recognize all words if I listen without looking (like voiture I did not realize was car until I looked), but I can understand enough from only listening to know the main idea of what's going on. To catch all the details, I need to look at the video to see what's going on. So from this result... maybe I am in the middle of Level 4, for French?

Spanish peppa pig: i can follow some phrases without looking, while only listening like "hello everyone, men/people (hermanos), a baby is coming" "a boy or girl, both" and "very interesting." However I didn't know the word for bird, until I looked at the video. I need to look at the video to understand the main idea of most sentences. I can understand the overall main idea if I look at the video, but many words/details that don't have a visual to hint at them I am perplexed by. Mentally this feels harder than listening to French, and much harder than listening to Chinese. I need to focus more intently to the Spanish. So maybe I am at the end of Level 3 in terms of what I understand? This is close to what I was guessing the content I can understand is - anything suggested for Level 3. So Beginner Dreaming Spanish videos, some Intermediate videos, some Spanish Boost Gaming (except the advanced videos - although I understand them enough for them to be fun for me).

Japanese peppa pig: this one is for fun, to check. If I look at the video, I think I understand this one as well as the Spanish one, possibly a bit more. Since I recognize the conjugations of words in Japanese, and I have no idea what the different conjugation endings in Spanish mean. If I don't look, only listening I just catch phrases. "Want to eat" "what?" "Lunch" "strawberry cake" "help me" "quickly." I need to look at what's going on to follow what they're saying fully. I think... I am vaguely familiar with ~4000 Japanese words, from many study activities, and so if I kept watching things I could turn those words from vaguely familiar to quickly-understood and then I would no longer need visuals to give me a hint about what many of those words mean. So I think I have the vocabulary to understand Peppa pig somewhere in my head (peppa pig only has around 5000 unique words), I just would need to watch and listen more. I am vaguely familiar with more Japanese words, in terms of words I studied at some point, than Spanish words. So based on this test, I would imagine I'd get to the point of quickly-understood when listening faster with Japanese than Spanish (not factoring in that Spanish might be easier to pick up/internalize for an English speaker). I have a way stronger internalized model of Japanese grammar, from all those years studying and reviewing and refreshing lol. Again I wonder how things would go if I just... watched the lets plays I have saved, or played the video games I have...

So based on these I'd say:

Mandarin - almost Level 5, feels like Level 5.

French - solid Level 4 listening skills. Still need visuals to understand some words. I think with some cartoon and show watching, to connect words I can read to listening while seeing visuals, my French listening might improve decently fast. I feel my French could catch up to where my Chinese level of understanding is, if I watched more French stuff.

Spanish - somewhere in Level 3. I still need to learn some basic words and grammar to understand some things without visuals. I am fully lacking some basic words. I have to learn many things brand new. Level 3 recommended materials and under will probably be most useful for improving.

Japanese - somewhere in Level 3 maybe toward the end, as the vocabulary is there inside my head somewhere. Like with French, I feel watching more visual stuff would rapidly improve the words I can recognize when only listening.

Some thoughts: studying reading first, like I've always done, seems to mean the phase where I am "confused about grammar when trying to understand something" happens while I'm learning to read. As for French, Chinese, and Japanese, I studied them through reading first (Japanese the least though) and grammar doesn't confuse me when listening. I can't replicate correct grammar when speaking or writing, but I don't have to puzzle out what they mean by X grammar when listening. I just 'get' it. I do remember the stage in Japanese when I was kind of reasing, kind of listening, and I WAS constantly confused by grammar and word order whenever I listened or read.

Then eventually one day it just clicked and I stopped having to intensively think about each sentence. I remember that stage in Chinese and I was mainly reading, so one day the grammar just "was understood" in reading and shows (Chinese captions I'd read) and I didn't need to intensively puzzle out every sentence and word order. That stage also happened in reading for French - one day 1-2 years in, I just stopped having to intensively think about grammar as I read. That phase is really frustrating, as its easy to get overwhelmed by every sentence. I have not had to go through it a second time when listening to Chinese or French. Even Japanese it only comes to mind once in a while, during more complex sentences. With Spanish, the grammar is constantly tripping me up - every single verb slows my understanding and makes me intensely puzzled. Lots of longer sentences confuse me. It is like night and day, how much similar things just Don't trip me up in French. My brain already did the work of puzzling over the word order and grammar, and now at listening speed (like shows or audiobooks) its ONLY words I don't recognize that trip me up - and I usually recognize them as words I've read after a while.

I liked the experience of picking up grammar in reading. If I have to reflect lol. It was an exhausting endeavor sure, but reading is as slow as I need it to be. Listening is so fast, so any confusion prevents me from understanding other parts I would otherwise have understood. So I guess if you learned to read, you could look forward to not having to adjust to the grammar a second time.

[rigelmejo]

11/2/2024 update - chinese:

1. Listening to something "harder" in chinese (poyun audiobook) seems to be helping. I listened to an audio drama today instead, just whatever my recommendation gave me (a crime solving BL which is the genre I'm comfortable in), and since it's an audio drama I definitely know at LEAST 95% of the words. I hear a few unknown words per minute, and when I look them up they're usually what I vaguely guessed when listening (so words I've read but struggle to recognize in listening). Since audio dramas are nearly all dialogue, I understand almost everything (i miss a few details per 5 minutes since theres still a few words I dont know and don't look up). I am not even paying attention, just letting it play as I scroll reddit ToT. I still understand almost all. So I think my quick-understanding speed is improving for more words. Poyun still feels equally hard lol, I catch dialogues mostly and then it's hit or miss if I understand descriptor paragraph's main idea when listening to the audiobook. But just listening to Poyun, while multitasking and just listening-in when I can focus, seems to be helping. So that's awesome! Maybe my test in a month will be if SaYe is clearer to me by then.

2. If you're a beginner learning Chinese, I again recommend dongchinese.com's Pinyin guide and tone pair drills. I'm begging you to spend a couple hours going through it. If you watch cdramas, even if you're watching with english subs, the ability to HEAR a word and type the pinyin into google translate app or Pleco app quickly for the translation is SO USEFUL. Early on, its useful for picking up new words and remembering them. But even now, as I'm listening to audiodramas, the skill of looking stuff up by pinyin as a beginner helps SO much now. I can hear unknown words in audio and instantly hear what pinyin I should type (zhi or zi or si or j or zhe or zha are very clearly different to my ear) and I'm used to expecting most words to be 1,2, or for phrases 4 hanzi long (so 1-4 initial-final pinyin pairs), with most words being 2 hanzi long, so if I hear an unknown word I can quickly identify WHICH 2 sounds are the new ones I just heard and look up the unknown word. These basic recognition skills get developed early on as a beginner, as you look up words and get used to the common patterns, and as you start reading and notice beyond the common 1 hanzi words, just how many are 2 hanzi.

3. If you're learning chinese and don't have the benefit of cognates with a language you know, chinese is still a bit "easier" to guess new words at a certain point. For reading, it's the multi-component hanzi which allow you to start guessimg rough pronunciation and meaning, and the 2 hanzi words which allow you to start guessing meaning is the 2 hanzi combined or perhaps related to the meanomg of the 1 of 2 hanzi you already know. With listening... there is also a benefit. Say you hear xiangfa - xiang think, fa method, you can guess it has something to do with thoughts or ideas or trails of thoughts. Xiang is a common verb so you probably already know it, or can guess it's THAT xiang based on context of a scene, and fa is also a fairly common word so you can guess it might be That Fa. It means idea. So guessing "thought" would be close enough to undersrand meaning. (And of course seeing it written 想法 thought+method xiangfa easy to see hanzi meaning and then guess idea or something close).

4. I'm hoping the comprehensible input/ALG suggestions of a LOT of comprehensible input actually help me with speaking tones. Even though I did tons of explicit study, which ALG thinks "damages pronunciation"... but I didn't actually speak much yet. At a certain point (around a year imto learning?) I stopped studying tones of new hanzi and words and just used audio in pleco or google translate (or TTS, shows, audiobooks etc) to hear how new stuff sounded if I didnt remember. Since I read a lot, so I just felt I needed to add more sound to not learn the wrong pronunciation... so idk how that will go.

[rigelmejo]

Okay so 33 hours listened to Chinese so far, since starting my experiment to listen to as much Chinese as possible. Some thoughts:

The strategy I used for novels, kind of also works for audiobooks. It is: read/listen to something 'hard' and look up words at least every 5 minutes (so maybe 5-20 words looked up per chapter), re-read/relisten a few times, go to next chapter. Then read/listen to something slightly less hard, and it should feel easier than it did prior to doing this. So basically you are gradually moving up the bar of what is 'easy' for you to read/listen to. I did this in reading with Mandarin Companion graded readers, then I moved up to Tian Ya Ke, Zhenhun, and a pingxie fanfic Hanshe, as my 'harder' read and look things up for a while, then I went to try and extensively read Xiao Wang Zi without looking words up which was doable (but difficult). Then I read more 'harder' stuff where I looked up 5-20 words per chapter to understand main idea, and Xiao Wang Zi became easy to read for both the main plot and most details without looking words up, and stuff like Zhenhun became doable to read extensively (but difficult). That's basically been my reading strategy to push up my reading level - read something 'hard' where I need to look up key words to understand the main idea, read something 'doable' where I can read extensively to follow the plot but don't understand all details, read some 'easy' stuff I can extensively understand the plot and most details in. And then gradually the unique word counts/complexity of what's 'easy' to read extensively increases.

Well, the strategy seems to be kind of working for audiobooks too. I listen to MoDu chapters which are 'harder' to understand main ideas and I look up 5-20 words an hour especially if it bugs me I can't understand them (they seem like keywords to understanding the main idea), then I re-listen to MoDu chapter a few times (re-listening to what is now 'doable' with extensive listening to follow main idea without looking up words), then I go re-listen to some EASIER audiobook and notice OH WOW this is so much easier to understand now.

I listened to a little bit of HP1 audiobook in the Fall, since the audiobooks are all free on Libby and I wanted a kids book. I remember it took intense focus to catch any details, and mostly I could only identify 'generally what scene I was listening to' since I know the plot from english. I just tried relistening, and definitely knew a MAJORITY of the words I heard. It is much easier to listen to extensively, I AM recognizing words i know quicker (which also helps me comprehend more since I'm not puzzling out if I know a word for 5 seconds a piece), and the single to 4 words I don't know in a given minute stick out to me, and it's easier to guess what they might mean. Like hearing jumang and being able to guess that means python/big snake. *I also notice how MUCH the MoDu audiobook has helped me comprehend stuff like facial expressions, appearance descriptions, talking descriptions/dialogue tags, quicker. MoDu has way more complicated phrases that deal with these kinds of things, so a kids book where they just say geze gao? Very easy to recognize in comparison. Or MoDu saying yansu de biaoqing, zhoulezhoumei versus just 'yansu de handao' in a kids story. MoDu has soooo many more complicated descriptions compared to HP1, with comparisons of nouns to other nouns, and intangible nouns/things words idea/focus/point/reasoning/abyss.

I am unsure if the strategy I have of listening to 'harder' audio is helping in the sense of lots more words to learn, lots more surrounding context to guess the meaning of more words, or if my time would be spent better listening to to 'easier' audio where I can understand almost every word.

I do think, regardless, listening to something you already know the plot of helps a lot. It helps you guess more words than you could otherwise. And some audiobooks have sound effects/music which also help a lot (you can tell the setting somewhat from that, and the mood descriptors, and sometimes the actions they're doing, which helps with guessing words).

[rigelmejo]

It's so funny how goalposts move as you learn more.

I must be trudging in the intermediate stage. It's very long lol. What felt out of reach, I can now do. But it also means I now aim to do things I didn't think would be within my realm of hoping for, before.

My old goals (which I met): able to understand the main idea of shows from Mandarin subtitles and visuals, able to read manhua for the main idea enough to enjoy, able to read and grasp at least the main idea of SOME webnovels.

My goals now: able to understand the main idea of shows AND most details with only audio and visuals, be able to understand the main idea and nearly All details if I watch a show with Mandarin subs, able to listen to audio dramas for main idea with ease, able to listen to audiobooks for main idea and Some details with ease, ability to speak on a basic level about whatever I want (so bad grammar or small amount of active vocabulary is okay but I want to be able to communicate ideas), ability to understand people talking regularly about everyday topics, ability to understand conversational podcasts and news, improving my reading skills so that when I extensively read I understand the main idea and Most to Nearly All details.

Which... I am moving toward those goals.

able to understand the main idea of shows AND most details with only audio and visuals: I can understand the main idea of most shows without subs now, it's just waiting to learn enough for me to get better with details until I'm satisfied. That wasn't true at beginning of last year, so I'm making progress.

be able to understand the main idea and nearly All details if I watch a show with Mandarin subs: I'm getting there! I understand the main idea and Most details now, with most shows if I have Mandarin subs. It also feels Easier to watch shows now. But I am not understanding Nearly All details yet.

able to listen to audio dramas for main idea with ease: I made a lot of progress on this over 2025. I went from unable to understand audio dramas at all, to able to understand audio dramas of things i've also read the book or seen the show, and in 2026 i got better at following the Main Idea of new audio dramas - it is just not as easy as i'd like yet. And i'm sure once i reach this goal, the goalpost will move to "understand main idea AND most details" with ease.

able to listen to audiobooks for main idea and Some details with ease: i can listen to audiobooks i have read before now, and grasp the main idea and Some details - so that's an improvement since 2024. It is not "with ease" as much as i want yet. And i can't do it reliably with new audiobooks yet.

ability to speak on a basic level about whatever I want (so bad grammar or small amount of active vocabulary is okay but I want to be able to communicate ideas): making progress. This 2026 i am noticeably better at this than 2025. I find listening has helped a LOT with this. So has writing. I think if I shadow more, that will also help this goal. My active vocabulary is the main reason i can't do this yet, and it's improving in spurts. I am just not sure what I'm doing right when it improves, so i'm not sure how to improve this faster yet. So i'm still trying different things to see what noticeably helps most. I am confident i'll reach this goal in 1-2 years if i keep practicing talking once in a while.

ability to understand people talking regularly about everyday topics: better than in 2024 or 2025. I can see by the difficulty of learner podcasts i can understand, and with how much ease, that this has improved. I can also see by how show dialogue about everyday life stuff is easier to follow and understand. But i still struggle with many accents, and i struggle if the discussion goes more in depth than simple "im going to do/i did/do you want/i did-verb" such as discussing the economy on a basic level, or what people think/feel about things in depth as they compare things. So i need to improve some more to reach this goal. I think listening is improving this goal over time.

ability to understand conversational podcasts and news: not where i want to be yet, but making progress. Again, the level of learner podcasts i can understand has increased which shows i'm moving toward my goal. I can finally understand some main ideas (not all) of some podcasts for native speakers. I can understand some news if it's in video form with Mandarin subs and visuals. I still have a ways to go.

Improving my reading skills so that when I extensively read I understand the main idea and Most to Nearly All details: i am at the point where my extensive reading for the main idea is frustrating me. Because i can follow plots but not enjoy tons of the nuances. It makes me feel like when i was in 7th grade trying to read Stephen King, or 9th grade trying to read Shakespeare. I feel like a teen trying to read adult literature and slogging through. My current idea is that my reading level, at this point, can likely be improved mainly from more extensive reading (a lot more). I can still intensively read (and it would help of course), but i am lazy and don't want to look up stuff if i dont have to. I find myself not looking up words because i need to know, but because i really want to understand the fucking nuance of something - in middle to high school in my native language i'd do that when reading Fanfic or novels if i got Really Frustrated and wanted to KNOW the nuance better. I feel a lot like that with Chinese now. Back when i started, a middle school reading level seemed AMAZING (and it is), and nearly impossible of a goal. Now? It feels frustrating. I remember this stage when I learned to read French and it does eventually pass... I just have to read MOREEEE. This particular goal is extra complicated, because I do not want to focus on it until my Listening Skills and Listening Goals are much more accomplished. I feel reading is partly frustrating due to how many words I don't know how to pronounce. Improving my listening skills, and words known through listening, will mean a much smaller amount of written words I have to guess how to pronounce. (I need to look up if Chinese speakers get so hung up on not knowing how to pronounce a hanzi when they read, or if they speed past unknown pronunciations if they recognize the hanzi's meaning). At my best, i could read around 16,000 words. So i don't really want to focus on Reading again until my listening skills are also around 16k words. When i read lately, i try to read either an audiobook on bilibili with Mandarin subs on it, a show with Mandarin subs, or read in Microsoft Edge with TTS so I don't read much without audio.

Longer term goals than even those: reading more about hanzi and practicing writing them (it hit me recently how frustrating it is I can read so many hanzi fine but for many I can't spontaneously recall their components to write them or describe them), reading more about grammar and practicing writing and speaking in proper forms (i am starting to speak and write as my active vocabulary is improving, and i'm understandable i think, but i also make HSK3 grammar mistakes and dont use simple grammatical forms and i wish to one day write/speak closer to how well i can understand), understanding audiobooks for main idea and nearly all details with it feeling just as easy as English (English audiobooks still require full focus for me to grasp That much, but i can easily understand That much if focusing and i look toward the day Chinese listening feels like that). These kinds of goals may take another 5-10 years to reach. Or more. I never even dreamed I'd have these kinds of goals when I started learning. I assumed they'd be out of reach forever.

[rigelmejo]

2/21/2026 My Chinese level statistics from hsklevel.com

I know 6750 words in Chinese:

Old HSK 2.0 level 4/6

🟩🟩🟩🟨⬛⬛

New HSK 3.0 level 4/9

🟩🟩🟩🟨⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛

You can see on the graph my result was slightly under 6000 words at the beginning of 2026, when I started only answerimg words known IF I knew both the hanzi and pronunciation. So I have learned 750-1000 words (known in reading AND speaking) since then wooh!

I am excited seeing words known go up on this. Now this is words I can confidently say I know in reading and listening.

Back when I was focusing on reading, it was exciting seeing the number go up too. You can see at my height of reading I could recognize around 16,000 words. 8,000 words is the last result I got when I answered yes if I could simply read a word (not necessarily know the pronunciation), after not reading for months. So I think 8000 words is my reliable reading level of vocabulary. Even if I take breaks.

Update: back on 1/12/2026 I knew 5250 words I can understand in both reading and listening . So I have learned 1500 words since then. (Some of these words were ones I knew from reading of course, and now can also recognize in listening enough to recall their pronunciation).