Philemon in Chinese: 226 Characters
Answering: “how many characters in Philemon in Chinese”
Updated 2026-09-22 · plain text · JSON
Philemon is a single-chapter personal letter asking a slave owner to receive back Onesimus — the shortest of Paul's letters.
Every figure below is counted from the 和合本 (Chinese Union Version), simplified script text of Philemon 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.
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Chapters | 1 |
| Verses | 25 |
| Chinese characters | 601 |
| Distinct characters | 226 |
| Word tokens | 448 |
| Distinct words | 210 |
| Average verse | 24 characters |
| HSK 1-3 word tokens | 61.8% |
| HSK 1-6 word tokens | 75.4% |
| Not in HSK 1-9 | 18.8% |
| Difficulty rank | 17 of 66 (1 = easiest) |
| Reading time | 2 min at 260 chars/min |
| Testament | New Testament |
| # | Word | Occurrences in this book |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 基督 | 6 |
| 2 | 主 | 5 |
| 3 | 耶稣 | 4 |
| 4 | 同 | 4 |
| 5 | 兄弟 | 4 |
| 6 | 亚 | 4 |
| 7 | 说 | 4 |
| 8 | 必 | 4 |
| 9 | 保罗 | 3 |
| 10 | 给 | 3 |
| 11 | 愿 | 3 |
| 12 | 因 | 3 |
| 13 | 爱心 | 3 |
| 14 | 人 | 3 |
| 15 | 使 | 3 |
| 16 | 得 | 3 |
| 17 | 心 | 3 |
| 18 | 囚 | 2 |
| 19 | 写信 | 2 |
| 20 | 亲爱 | 2 |
Function words excluded. Each word has its own page with pinyin, stroke order and the verses it appears in.
| Chapter | HSK 1-3 | Verses | Characters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Philemon 1 | 61.8% | 25 | 601 |
Read it
Philemon 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 Philemon in Chinese?
- 601 Chinese characters in total, written with 226 distinct characters, across 25 verses and 1 chapter.
- What HSK level do I need to read Philemon?
- 61.8% of its word tokens are HSK 1-3 and 75.4% are within HSK 1-6; the remaining 18.8% are outside the HSK lists altogether, mostly names.
- How long does Philemon take to read in Chinese?
- About 2 minutes at 260 characters a minute — a fluent pace, so expect two to four times that while learning.
- Is Philemon a good book to start with?
- Not the gentlest: it ranks 17 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).