Master HSK 2: Complete Vocabulary List and Essential Guide

By Felipe / Last updated July 1, 2025

Congratulations on progressing beyond HSK 1! You're now stepping into HSK 2, the second of 6 levels in the official Chinese proficiency test (HSK). HSK 2 challenges you to expand your vocabulary and use more complex structures.

This guide breaks down exactly what you'll learn in HSK 2, provides practical examples of new vocabulary, and outlines how this level improves your Chinese communication skills.

Quick Note: This guide covers HSK version 2.0, which is still widely taught and tested. HSK 3.0 is announced but not yet fully implemented.

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HSK 2 Vocabulary: How Many Words Are There?

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.

What You Can Do With HSK 2

HSK 2 builds upon the foundational vocabulary and grammar you learned in HSK 1, enabling you to communicate about more topics. Here's what you can confidently handle after completing 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.")

What You Can't Do With HSK 2

A friend of mine put it this way when he reached HSK 2:

"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. Nonetheless, it's still hard to have very deep conversations.

Just like with HSK 1, the vocabulary is still 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 😉

Should You Take the HSK 2 Test?

For most people, I would not recommend spending the money on it. HSK 2 is still so early on in the Chinese learning journey that the certificate is not super meaningful. However, if you are taking your time or only learn casually, the test can serve as a valuable milestone to keep you going.

Tips for Mastering HSK 2

Early HSK levels are all about the basics. I personally think that the two most important things to focus on at this stage are tones and characters.

Tones

I know that tones can be a real pain, but they are absolutely essential for speaking Chinese. The internet is full of stories of people who learned Chinese for years but never got the tones right, so they had to start over and spend a lot of time fixing their pronunciation. If you can get the tones right now, you will save yourself a lot of time and frustration later on. Check out our guide on Chinese tone practice for tips on how to improve your tones.

Characters

Characters are also crucial, as they form the basis of reading and writing in Chinese. So now is the time to slowly let go of pinyin and start focusing on characters. This transition can be challenging, but it doesn't get easier later on, so it's best to start early.

Additional Vocabulary

Something that is not necessary for passing HSK 2, but will help you a lot in the long run, is to start building non-HSK vocabulary early on. Early HSK levels really focus on getting certain common grammar structures across but don't really provide enough auxiliary vocabulary to use them effectively. Learning additional vocabulary 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.

Closing Thoughts

The HSK 2 vocabulary is still limited but your focus should be on 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 making only very little progress. Don't get discouraged though, learning Chinese is a marathon, not a sprint.

By the way, don't get too caught up on the best or most efficient way to learn Chinese. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. Find a method that works for you and stick with it. Don't listen to people on the internet who claim to have found the ultimate way to learn Chinese 😉

Full HSK 2 Vocabulary List

Ready to dive in and start mastering these words?

• Download HSK 2 Vocabulary List (Excel)

• Download HSK 2 Vocabulary List (PDF)

For a more interactive experience with example sentences and pronunciation, visit our online dictionary.