Why these 86
HSK 1 is the first rung of the standard Chinese proficiency test, and its vocabulary is the most-taught in the language. This pack takes the 86 characters our database grades HSK 1 and reorders them: instead of a textbook's thematic order, they run from one stroke to thirteen, so your hand meets 一 and 人 long before 都 and 喝. If you are working through a class syllabus, print these alongside it rather than instead of it.
For the teacher
What a learner should be able to do afterwards
- Write the 86 HSK 1 characters this site covers, from one stroke to twelve
- Move up the stroke count without meeting a shape they have not already written a piece of
- Recognise the family characters 爸 妈 哥 姐 妹 弟 as a set
Running it
- Eighty-six characters is not one session. Stroke count is the natural break: 1–4 strokes is a first sheet, 5–6 a second, 7–8 a third, and the rest a fourth.
- The order is by strokes, not by frequency or by textbook chapter, so the hand is always adding one stroke to something it can already write. A learner following a textbook can still use this — just take the characters in whatever order the chapter needs.
- This is 86 characters, not the official 150. The rest are outside the database this site is built from. Say so to an exam candidate; a pack that quietly under-delivers on a syllabus is worse than one that names its gap.
- 爸 妈 哥 姐 妹 弟 come out as a block and are worth teaching as one: six characters, one topic, and a sentence each learner can say about their own family by the end of it.
These notes were written from general teaching practice; not yet reviewed by a classroom teacher. If you teach and something here is wrong, we would rather hear it than not.
All 86 characters
| 一 | yī | one | 1 strokes |
| 二 | èr | two | 2 strokes |
| 七 | qī | seven | 2 strokes |
| 八 | bā | eight | 2 strokes |
| 九 | jiǔ | nine | 2 strokes |
| 十 | shí | ten | 2 strokes |
| 人 | rén | person | 2 strokes |
| 了 | le | completed-action particle | 2 strokes |
| 儿 | ér | child; son | 2 strokes |
| 三 | sān | three | 3 strokes |
| 大 | dà | big | 3 strokes |
| 小 | xiǎo | small | 3 strokes |
| 口 | kǒu | mouth | 3 strokes |
| 山 | shān | mountain | 3 strokes |
| 上 | shàng | above; up | 3 strokes |
| 下 | xià | below; down | 3 strokes |
| 女 | nǚ | woman | 3 strokes |
| 门 | mén | door; gate | 3 strokes |
| 五 | wǔ | five | 4 strokes |
| 六 | liù | six | 4 strokes |
| 日 | rì | sun; day | 4 strokes |
| 月 | yuè | moon; month | 4 strokes |
| 水 | shuǐ | water | 4 strokes |
| 中 | zhōng | middle; China | 4 strokes |
| 天 | tiān | sky; day | 4 strokes |
| 不 | bù | not | 4 strokes |
| 书 | shū | book | 4 strokes |
| 友 | yǒu | friend | 4 strokes |
| 开 | kāi | to open | 4 strokes |
| 少 | shǎo | few | 4 strokes |
| 今 | jīn | now; today | 4 strokes |
| 分 | fēn | minute; to divide | 4 strokes |
| 车 | chē | vehicle | 4 strokes |
| 四 | sì | four | 5 strokes |
| 本 | běn | root; origin; measure word for books | 5 strokes |
| 他 | tā | he; him | 5 strokes |
| 们 | men | plural marker | 5 strokes |
| 生 | shēng | to be born; life | 5 strokes |
| 写 | xiě | to write | 5 strokes |
| 去 | qù | to go | 5 strokes |
| 白 | bái | white | 5 strokes |
| 好 | hǎo | good | 6 strokes |
| 她 | tā | she; her | 6 strokes |
| 有 | yǒu | to have | 6 strokes |
| 在 | zài | at; in | 6 strokes |
| 会 | huì | can; to meet | 6 strokes |
| 字 | zì | character; word | 6 strokes |
| 名 | míng | name | 6 strokes |
| 吃 | chī | to eat | 6 strokes |
| 多 | duō | many | 6 strokes |
| 老 | lǎo | old | 6 strokes |
| 年 | nián | year | 6 strokes |
| 妈 | mā | mum | 6 strokes |
| 我 | wǒ | I; me | 7 strokes |
| 你 | nǐ | you | 7 strokes |
| 听 | tīng | to listen | 7 strokes |
| 来 | lái | to come | 7 strokes |
| 坐 | zuò | to sit | 7 strokes |
| 时 | shí | time | 7 strokes |
| 弟 | dì | younger brother | 7 strokes |
| 快 | kuài | fast; happy | 7 strokes |
| 饭 | fàn | cooked rice; a meal | 7 strokes |
| 的 | de | possessive particle | 8 strokes |
| 和 | hé | and; with | 8 strokes |
| 学 | xué | to study | 8 strokes |
| 朋 | péng | friend | 8 strokes |
| 明 | míng | bright; next | 8 strokes |
| 国 | guó | country | 8 strokes |
| 爸 | bà | dad | 8 strokes |
| 姐 | jiě | older sister | 8 strokes |
| 妹 | mèi | younger sister | 8 strokes |
| 狗 | gǒu | dog | 8 strokes |
| 杯 | bēi | cup | 8 strokes |
| 果 | guǒ | fruit; result | 8 strokes |
| 是 | shì | to be | 9 strokes |
| 说 | shuō | to speak | 9 strokes |
| 看 | kàn | to look | 9 strokes |
| 点 | diǎn | dot; o'clock | 9 strokes |
| 茶 | chá | tea | 9 strokes |
| 面 | miàn | face; noodles | 9 strokes |
| 爱 | ài | to love | 10 strokes |
| 家 | jiā | home; family | 10 strokes |
| 哥 | gē | older brother | 10 strokes |
| 猫 | māo | cat | 11 strokes |
| 菜 | cài | vegetable; dish | 11 strokes |
| 喝 | hē | to drink | 12 strokes |
Questions people ask
No, and the reason is worth knowing. This pack is the 86 characters this site grades HSK 1 by the character's own level — the grading the original hand-checked data was built on. Grade instead by the easiest HSK word a character appears in, which is how HSK publishes its lists, and level 1 comes to 174 characters. The two gradings disagree on about a third of the characters we measured, so mixing them would make "HSK 1" mean two different things on two pages of the same site. We print the one we can stand behind and say which it is.
The 2021 standard, HSK 3.0. The older HSK 2.0 level one was a much shorter list of 150 words.
They are all on the site already — every HSK 1 character has its own page and can be typed into the generator. What they do not yet have is a graded level in our own data, which is the only thing keeping them out of this pack.