HSK 2 – Vocabulary list and content

By Felipe / Last updated September 10, 2024

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HSK level 2 is the second of 6 levels in the official Chinese proficiency test HSK. After tackling the basics in HSK 1, HSK 2 challenges you to expand your vocabulary and use more complex structures. Let's dive into what HSK 2 covers and how it pushes your Chinese skills further!

Quick disclaimer: This guide is about HSK version 2.0. An update to the HSK test (version 3.0) has been officially announced in 2021 and brings some significant changes. However, textbooks are still being updated to fit the new curriculum and you can not take the new HSK tests, yet. So for the foreseeable future, the current HSK 2.0 is going to stay relevant.

How many words are in HSK 2?

HSK level 2 introduces 150 new words and 174 distinct new characters. That means that you will know a total of 300 words and 348 characters after HSK 2.

Things you can do with HSK 2

HSK 1 introduces a lot of basic sentence structures but does not offer enough vocabulary to be useful. HSK 2 starts filling in these gaps. Let's look at some examples of what you can say after passing the HSK 2 test.

Talk about distances: Using words like 离/離 (lí, "distance from"), 远/遠 (yuǎn, "far"), and 近 (jìn, "close"), you can say things like "The train station is very close from here" (火车站离这里很近/火車站離這裏很近).

Use directions: HSK 1 taught you how to ask for the location of things. HSK 2 introduces the words for "left" (zuǒbian, 左边/左邊) and "right" (yòubian, 右边/右邊), so you have a better chance to understand the answer. For example, you can now say "The bookstore is to the left of the cinema" (书店在电影院的左边/書店在電影院的左邊).

Talk about hobbies: HSK 2 teaches a couple words related to activities, for example, running, swimming, playing football, and traveling. This allows you to introduce yourself a bit better and talk about what kind of activities you like or dislike. For example, you could say "我喜欢旅行和看书 / 我喜歡旅行和看書" (Wǒ xǐhuan lǚxíng hé kànshū, I like traveling and reading).

Larger numbers: With the introduction of 百 (bǎi, one hundred) and 千 (qiān, one thousand) you can now talk about numbers up to 9,999.

Haggle: You can now express your opinion on prices by stating that something is "expensive" (贵/貴, guì) or "cheap" (便宜, piányi). This can be extremely helpful when you go souvenir shopping in China. People will sometimes try to charge you double or triple the actual price, just because you are foreigner. You can now keep saying 太貴了 (tài gùi le, too expensive) until you think the price is more reasonable.

Cause and effect: HSK 2 introduces the very common pattern 因爲 ...，所以 ... (yīnwèi ..., suǒyǐ ...; because ..., therefore ...) to talk about cause and effect. For example, "因为我生病了，所以我今天不去上班。" (Yīnwèi wǒ shēngbìng le, suǒyǐ wǒ jīntiān bù qù shàngbān; "Because I have fallen ill, I am not going to work today.")

Things you cannot do with HSK 2

A friend of mine put it this way, "It used to take only one minute for me to use up all my vocabulary in a conversation with a native. Now it takes three." Three minutes is better than one and you can talk about more things now, like your hobbies and your siblings. However, it's still not enough to have very deep conversations.

Just like with HSK 1, the vocabulary is simply too limited. However, I have good news for you: You won't have to survive on rice, apples, and water anymore. You can now also get milk, noodles, watermelon, and mutton 😉

The feast you can have with HSK 2 vocabulary

Closing thoughts

The HSK 2 vocabulary is still not quite enough to have proper conversations but you will still be busy wrapping your mind around the concepts of tones and Chinese characters anyway. Internalizing these concepts takes some time but it is crucial to get them right early on to enjoy sustained success later. It can be a little frustrating to spend so much time studying a new language and feeling like not knowing anything. Don't get discouraged though, learning Chinese is a marathon, not a sprint.

Early HSK levels really focus on getting certain common grammar structures across but don't really provide enough auxiliary vocabulary to use them effectively. I would thus recommend to start building non-HSK vocabulary early on. That might feel like slowing down progress even further, but the grammar points introduced so far already pack quite the punch if combined with a larger vocabulary.

Regarding the actual test, I would not recommend spending the money on it, for most people. HSK 2 is still so early on in the Chinese learning journey that the certificate does not hold a lot of significance. There is an exception if you can only invest a small amount of time to learning Chinese on a regular basis. In that case, your progress will overall be slower and taking the test might be a nice milestone.

Until next time, happy learning! 🤓