How many characters are in Colossians in Chinese?

2,835 Chinese characters in total, written with 558 distinct characters, across 94 verses and 4 chapters.

What HSK level do I need to read Colossians?

61.2% of its word tokens are HSK 1-3 and 74.1% are within HSK 1-6; the remaining 19.9% are outside the HSK lists altogether, mostly names.

How long does Colossians take to read in Chinese?

About 11 minutes at 260 characters a minute — a fluent pace, so expect two to four times that while learning.

Is Colossians a good book to start with?

Not the gentlest: it ranks 25 of 66 by vocabulary. John and Matthew are easier by this measure.

Colossians in Chinese: 558 Characters

Answering: “how many characters in Colossians in Chinese”

Updated 2026-09-22 · plain text · JSON

Colossians answers a rival teaching by asserting the sufficiency of Christ, in language close to that of Ephesians.

Every figure below is counted from the 和合本 (Chinese Union Version), simplified script text of Colossians 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.

Colossians in numbers

Measure	Value
Chapters	4
Verses	94
Chinese characters	2,835
Distinct characters	558
Word tokens	1,959
Distinct words	628
Average verse	30 characters
HSK 1-3 word tokens	61.2%
HSK 1-6 word tokens	74.1%
Not in HSK 1-9	19.9%
Difficulty rank	25 of 66 (1 = easiest)
Reading time	11 min at 260 chars/min
Testament	New Testament

The words Colossians uses most

#	Word	Occurrences in this book
1	要	29
2	基督	28
3	神	26
4	人	21
5	主	16
6	一切	16
7	叫	16
8	作	12
9	有	12
10	地	11
11	因	10
12	一同	10
13	里面	9
14	用	8
15	心	8
16	事	8
17	给	7
18	就是	7
19	那里	7
20	受	7

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

The easiest chapters of Colossians

Chapter	HSK 1-3	Verses	Characters
Colossians 4	63.8%	18	556
Colossians 1	62.7%	29	910
Colossians 3	60.1%	25	682
Colossians 2	57.8%	22	687

Read it

Colossians 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 Colossians in Chinese?: 2,835 Chinese characters in total, written with 558 distinct characters, across 94 verses and 4 chapters.
What HSK level do I need to read Colossians?: 61.2% of its word tokens are HSK 1-3 and 74.1% are within HSK 1-6; the remaining 19.9% are outside the HSK lists altogether, mostly names.
How long does Colossians take to read in Chinese?: About 11 minutes at 260 characters a minute — a fluent pace, so expect two to four times that while learning.
Is Colossians a good book to start with?: Not the gentlest: it ranks 25 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).