How many characters are in 2 Timothy in Chinese?

2,280 Chinese characters in total, written with 569 distinct characters, across 83 verses and 4 chapters.

What HSK level do I need to read 2 Timothy?

58.8% of its word tokens are HSK 1-3 and 70.2% are within HSK 1-6; the remaining 20.9% are outside the HSK lists altogether, mostly names.

How long does 2 Timothy take to read in Chinese?

About 9 minutes at 260 characters a minute — a fluent pace, so expect two to four times that while learning.

Is 2 Timothy a good book to start with?

Not the gentlest: it ranks 35 of 66 by vocabulary. John and Matthew are easier by this measure.

2 Timothy in Chinese: 569 Characters

Answering: “how many characters in 2 Timothy in Chinese”

Updated 2026-09-22 · plain text · JSON

2 Timothy reads as a final charge from an imprisoned Paul to a younger colleague.

Every figure below is counted from the 和合本 (Chinese Union Version), simplified script text of 2 Timothy on this site: characters from the simplified text, words from its segmentation, HSK levels from the word lists. The difficulty rank compares this book with the other 65 by the share of word tokens at HSK 1-3.

2 Timothy in numbers

Measure	Value
Chapters	4
Verses	83
Chinese characters	2,280
Distinct characters	569
Word tokens	1,635
Distinct words	615
Average verse	27 characters
HSK 1-3 word tokens	58.8%
HSK 1-6 word tokens	70.2%
Not in HSK 1-9	20.9%
Difficulty rank	35 of 66 (1 = easiest)
Reading time	9 min at 260 chars/min
Testament	New Testament

The words 2 Timothy uses most

#	Word	Occurrences in this book
1	人	31
2	要	23
3	神	16
4	主	16
5	基督	13
6	有	13
7	必	13
8	耶稣	12
9	作	8
10	给	7
11	地	7
12	按	7
13	已经	7
14	知道	7
15	来	7
16	愿	6
17	叫	6
18	信	6
19	使	6
20	福音	6

Function words excluded. Each word has its own page with pinyin, stroke order and the verses it appears in.

The easiest chapters of 2 Timothy

Chapter	HSK 1-3	Verses	Characters
2 Timothy 4	61.2%	22	600
2 Timothy 1	59.5%	18	566
2 Timothy 3	57.5%	17	443
2 Timothy 2	57%	26	671

Read it

2 Timothy in the parallel reader — Chinese, pinyin and your own language side by side. Or take its vocabulary deck first, ordered by how often each word occurs in this book.

Questions

How many characters are in 2 Timothy in Chinese?: 2,280 Chinese characters in total, written with 569 distinct characters, across 83 verses and 4 chapters.
What HSK level do I need to read 2 Timothy?: 58.8% of its word tokens are HSK 1-3 and 70.2% are within HSK 1-6; the remaining 20.9% are outside the HSK lists altogether, mostly names.
How long does 2 Timothy take to read in Chinese?: About 9 minutes at 260 characters a minute — a fluent pace, so expect two to four times that while learning.
Is 2 Timothy a good book to start with?: Not the gentlest: it ranks 35 of 66 by vocabulary. John and Matthew are easier by this measure.

Related reference pages

Take it further

97 ready-made vocabulary decks — by HSK level, by book or by topic, exportable to Anki, Pleco or Quizlet.
Printable 田字格 worksheets — passages with pinyin, meanings and tracing rows.
The parallel reader — Chinese, pinyin and your own language side by side, every word tappable.
The dataset behind these numbers — plain JSON, free to reuse with attribution.

How these numbers were produced

Text: 和合本 (Chinese Union Version), simplified script — public domain — 66 books, 1,189 chapters, 31,021 verses.
Words: forward maximum matching against CC-CEDICT (this site's own segmentation). A different segmenter gives slightly different word counts; character counts are unaffected.
HSK levels: HSK 3.0 levels from the complete-hsk-vocabulary list; band 7 covers HSK 7-9.
Reading times: 260 characters a minute — an assumption about a fluent adult reader, not a measurement.
Computed: 2026-09-22, from the text on this site.

These are counts anyone can reproduce from the published dataset. They are not a peer-reviewed linguistic study, and the difficulty rankings are one stated formula rather than a validated readability score.

Definitions: CC-CEDICT, licensed CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). If you share this file onward, keep this notice and share alike. Character data: Make Me a Hanzi (Arphic Public License / LGPL).