How many characters are in 1 Thessalonians in Chinese?

2,623 Chinese characters in total, written with 483 distinct characters, across 89 verses and 5 chapters.

What HSK level do I need to read 1 Thessalonians?

61.9% of its word tokens are HSK 1-3 and 74.5% are within HSK 1-6; the remaining 18.8% are outside the HSK lists altogether, mostly names.

How long does 1 Thessalonians take to read in Chinese?

About 10 minutes at 260 characters a minute — a fluent pace, so expect two to four times that while learning.

Is 1 Thessalonians a good book to start with?

Not the gentlest: it ranks 16 of 66 by vocabulary. John and Matthew are easier by this measure.

1 Thessalonians in Chinese: 483 Characters

Answering: “how many characters in 1 Thessalonians in Chinese”

Updated 2026-09-22 · plain text · JSON

1 Thessalonians is likely Paul's earliest surviving letter, encouraging a young church and addressing its questions about those who had died.

Every figure below is counted from the 和合本 (Chinese Union Version), simplified script text of 1 Thessalonians 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.

1 Thessalonians in numbers

Measure	Value
Chapters	5
Verses	89
Chinese characters	2,623
Distinct characters	483
Word tokens	1,699
Distinct words	534
Average verse	29 characters
HSK 1-3 word tokens	61.9%
HSK 1-6 word tokens	74.5%
Not in HSK 1-9	18.8%
Difficulty rank	16 of 66 (1 = easiest)
Reading time	10 min at 260 chars/min
Testament	New Testament

The words 1 Thessalonians uses most

#	Word	Occurrences in this book
1	神	38
2	主	27
3	人	24
4	要	23
5	弟兄们	14
6	耶稣	12
7	给	10
8	那里	9
9	叫	9
10	一样	9
11	因	8
12	地	7
13	信心	7
14	知道	7
15	道	7
16	愿	6
17	受	6
18	福音	6
19	怎样	6
20	喜乐	6

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

The easiest chapters of 1 Thessalonians

Chapter	HSK 1-3	Verses	Characters
1 Thessalonians 3	64.9%	13	418
1 Thessalonians 1	64.5%	10	361
1 Thessalonians 4	64.1%	18	551
1 Thessalonians 2	62.7%	20	698
1 Thessalonians 5	55.1%	28	595

Read it

1 Thessalonians 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 1 Thessalonians in Chinese?: 2,623 Chinese characters in total, written with 483 distinct characters, across 89 verses and 5 chapters.
What HSK level do I need to read 1 Thessalonians?: 61.9% of its word tokens are HSK 1-3 and 74.5% are within HSK 1-6; the remaining 18.8% are outside the HSK lists altogether, mostly names.
How long does 1 Thessalonians take to read in Chinese?: About 10 minutes at 260 characters a minute — a fluent pace, so expect two to four times that while learning.
Is 1 Thessalonians a good book to start with?: Not the gentlest: it ranks 16 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).