From Zero to HSK 5 (kinda a hero, 不是 😅) I started my HSK journey back in 2020. At the beginning, I used different textbooks — HSK Standard Course, New Practical Chinese Reader (1–4), and Boya Chinese. But since my goal was to pass HSK 5 and study my major in Chinese, I focused mainly on the Standard Course. (click here to see a whole post) I moved through the first levels pretty quickly — HSK 1–3 in about three months. Then came HSK 4, which was way more challenging than I expected. The grammar tripped me up, and I wasn’t yet used to the “Chinese way of thinking.” To get past that, I started reading graded readers, short stories, and even some novels. It helped me get used to the natural flow of the language. In the end, HSK 4 took me about four months.
Then came the real ride: HSK 5. This was the point when I leaned on my Chinese friends the most. I tried a few italki lessons, but online classes just didn’t work for me — I need someone in front of me, explaining things face-to-face. At that time, my Chinese still felt shaky, and when I sat HSK 5 (and HSKK 高级), I was anything but confident. Some of my old followers might remember how hard I was cramming, but what no one knew was just how stressed I really was.
I passed, but here’s the twist: the confidence didn’t come from the certificate. It came later, after I actually arrived in China. Suddenly I was using Chinese with professors, classmates, street vendors, even nurses at the hospital. And that’s when I realized — I do understand. The impostor syndrome I had been carrying around just… disappeared. 🙏
Studygram community helped me a lot to stay consistent. Find study-buddies, find your goals, organize your materials, have a solid study-ecosystem (I will talk about it in the future!).
So why was I able to move so quickly in the beginning? Honestly, Japanese. I studied it during my BA and MA, and even though my Japanese was far from perfect, it gave me a huge head start with characters.
Looking back, it wasn’t just about passing an exam. It was about building a language that I could actually live in.
