Chinese is a group of languages that form the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language’s family, spoken by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minorities ethnic groups in Greater China. About 1.3 billion people speak a variety of Chinese as their first language.
You may often hear people in the Chinese-learning community throw around the terms when they talk about their level or aim in Chinese.
If you don’t know it yet, the HSK system is commonly used by Chinese educators and employers to measure foreigners’ ability in Chinese. That’s why the HSK level is something that every Chinese learner should be familiar with.
In this guide, we’re going to talk about what HSK levels are, their correspondence to CEFR scale, why they matter, how you can pinpoint your Chinese proficiency to an HSK level, and how you can get officially certified with HSK when needed.
HSK stands for Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi, the Pinyin version for 汉语水平考试, meaning “Chinese Proficiency Test”.
As the name suggests, HSK is a series of tests for non-native Chinese speakers to certify their knowledge of Mandarin Chinese. It consists of six independent tests at different levels. Depending on which level you can pass, HSK certifies your proficiency accordingly, from HSK1 to HSK6. And since HSK is widely recognized and accepted, every time you refer to your HSK level, people can quickly evaluate your Chinese skills.
The organizer of HSK is Hanban (汉办), an affiliation of the Chinese Ministry of Education also in charge of the Confucius Institutes. HSK levels and scores are primarily used by Chinese universities as part of the admissions process for international students, but anyone who wants to define their Mandarin level or needs to demonstrate a mastery of Mandarin for professional purposes can take the HSK.
There are six levels of writing tests, namely the HSK (level I), HSK (level II), HSK (level III), HSK (level IV), HSK (level V), and HSK (level VI). There are three levels of speaking tests, namely the HSK Speaking Test (beginner level), HSK Speaking Test (intermediate level), and HSK Speaking Test (advanced level).