Word Character Counter

Chinese Character Counter

Count Chinese characters (字数) in any text, with Simplified and Traditional characters, Chinese punctuation, Pinyin and English counted separately. Paste an essay, a subtitle file or a product description.

  • Simplified and Traditional
  • Runs in your browser
0 characters
Stays on this device

Character composition

How your text breaks down, as a share of what’s counted.

Simplified only 0%
Traditional only 0%
Same in both 0%
Latin letters 0%
Other 0%

How to count Chinese characters

Counting Chinese characters with this counter takes three steps, whether your text is Simplified, Traditional or mixed.

  1. Paste your text

    Chinese, or a mix of Chinese, Pinyin and English.

  2. Read the counts

    Chinese characters, punctuation, Pinyin, English words and the total update instantly.

  3. Check the script

    The composition chart shows whether your text is mostly Simplified or Traditional.

Example

我喜欢学习中文。 has 7 Chinese characters and 1 Chinese punctuation mark, so 8 characters in total. In a Chinese essay that usually counts as 8 字.

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How Chinese characters are counted (字数)

Chinese is written without spaces, and each character (字) is one syllable. Length requirements in Chinese, such as an 800-字 essay, are given in characters, not words.

The counter reports:

  • Chinese characters: every Han character, Simplified or Traditional.
  • Chinese punctuation: full-width marks such as 。，、！？「」. Many schools count these toward the 字数, so they’re shown separately rather than left out.
  • Pinyin and English: Latin-letter words. Pinyin with tone marks (nǐ hǎo) is counted as Pinyin; Pinyin without tone marks can’t be told apart from English and counts as English.
  • Simplified only, Traditional only and same in both: most common characters, such as 我 and 中, are written the same way in both systems. Only characters with distinct forms, such as 学 and 學, show which system a text uses.

How many Chinese characters do you need to know?

How many Chinese characters you need depends on what you want to read. A small set of very common characters covers most everyday text.

Characters knownShare of everyday textRoughly matches
1,000About 90%HSK 4 (1,096 characters)
1,500Between 90% and 98%HSK 5 (1,527 characters)
2,000About 98%HSK 6 (1,940 characters)
3,000About 99.5%HSK 7–9 (3,088 characters)
3,500Nearly all modern textChina’s list of first-level common characters

Coverage figures are for modern written Chinese, from character-frequency studies. HSK figures are the characters to recognize under the 2025 HSK syllabus.

Is 1,500 Chinese characters enough?

For everyday reading, 1,500 characters is a solid base. It’s about what the HSK 5 exam expects you to recognize, and it covers well over 90% of the characters in typical modern text. You’ll still meet unfamiliar characters in newspapers and novels, but you can usually follow the meaning and look up the rest.

For comfortable reading of news and literature, most learners aim for 2,500 to 3,500. China’s official Table of General Standard Chinese Characters lists 8,105 characters, of which 3,500 are classed as common.

Simplified vs Traditional Chinese characters

Simplified and Traditional Chinese characters differ only where a character was simplified, which is why the counter separates three groups.

  • 学

    Simplified only

    Used in mainland China and Singapore. 学 is the Simplified form of 學.

  • 學

    Traditional only

    Used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau.

  • 中

    Same in both

    Many common characters, such as 我, 中 and 人, never changed.

Chinese character counter FAQ

How many Chinese characters are there?

Large dictionaries list more than 50,000, but most are rare or historical. China’s standard list of characters in modern use has 8,105, and about 3,500 of those cover nearly all everyday text.

Does Chinese punctuation count as characters?

Often, yes. Many teachers and publishers include full-width punctuation such as 。and ，in the 字数. The counter shows punctuation separately so you can include or exclude it.

How do I know if my text is Simplified or Traditional?

Look at the Simplified-only and Traditional-only counts. Characters that are the same in both systems don’t tell you either way, so only the distinct forms count toward the verdict.

Is a Chinese character the same as a word?

No. A Chinese word (词) is often two characters, such as 学习 (to study). To count words instead, use the Chinese Words Counter.

Does the counter work with Cantonese or Japanese kanji?

It counts any Han character, so written Cantonese and Japanese kanji are counted too. For Japanese text, the Japanese Character Counter also counts hiragana and katakana.

Sources and references

  1. Table of General Standard Chinese Characters, Wikipedia
  2. Chinese character frequency, Wikipedia
  3. Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (HSK), Wikipedia
  4. OpenCC: Open Chinese Convert (character data), GitHub

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