# John in Chinese — vocabulary profile

> John uses 1,011 distinct Chinese characters and 1,647 distinct words across 23,643 characters and 877 verses of the Chinese Union Version (和合本, simplified). 72.3% of its word tokens are HSK 1-3, ranking it 1st of 66 books from easiest to hardest by that measure.

| Measure | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Chapters | 21 |
| Verses | 877 |
| Chinese characters | 23,643 |
| Distinct characters | 1,011 |
| Word tokens | 17,029 |
| Distinct words | 1,647 |
| Average verse | 27 characters |
| HSK 1-3 word tokens | 72.3% |
| HSK 1-6 word tokens | 79.7% |
| Not in HSK 1-9 | 16.5% |
| Difficulty rank | 1 of 66 (1 = easiest) |
| Reading time | 91 min at 260 chars/min |
| Testament | New Testament |

## Most frequent words in this book

| # | Word | Occurrences |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | 说 | 522 |
| 2 | 耶稣 | 335 |
| 3 | 人 | 203 |
| 4 | 来 | 199 |
| 5 | 要 | 160 |
| 6 | 去 | 132 |
| 7 | 父 | 119 |
| 8 | 有 | 117 |
| 9 | 信 | 97 |
| 10 | 叫 | 90 |
| 11 | 门徒 | 87 |
| 12 | 神 | 86 |
| 13 | 就是 | 86 |
| 14 | 那里 | 84 |
| 15 | 看见 | 77 |
| 16 | 知道 | 75 |
| 17 | 若 | 75 |
| 18 | 事 | 73 |
| 19 | 犹太人 | 72 |
| 20 | 话 | 67 |
| 21 | 因 | 62 |
| 22 | 告诉 | 62 |
| 23 | 差 | 51 |
| 24 | 回答 | 51 |
| 25 | 行 | 50 |
| 26 | 一 | 49 |
| 27 | 还 | 47 |
| 28 | 爱 | 46 |
| 29 | 道 | 44 |
| 30 | 谁 | 44 |
| 31 | 主 | 44 |
| 32 | 给 | 43 |
| 33 | 做 | 42 |
| 34 | 见 | 41 |
| 35 | 死 | 41 |
| 36 | 必 | 41 |
| 37 | 见证 | 40 |
| 38 | 听见 | 39 |
| 39 | 彼得 | 39 |
| 40 | 往 | 39 |
| 41 | 拿 | 39 |
| 42 | 作 | 38 |
| 43 | 儿子 | 38 |
| 44 | 已经 | 37 |
| 45 | 赐给 | 36 |
| 46 | 荣耀 | 36 |
| 47 | 看 | 35 |
| 48 | 哪里 | 35 |
| 49 | 认识 | 34 |
| 50 | 问 | 34 |

## Words found in John and nowhere else

弥赛亚 父爱 早在 末日 大于 保惠师 缸 痕 早饭 信子 再犯

## Chapters, easiest first

| Chapter | HSK 1-3 | Verses | Characters |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| John 14 | 78.6% | 31 | 940 |
| John 9 | 76.6% | 41 | 1,092 |
| John 15 | 75.8% | 27 | 790 |
| John 17 | 75.5% | 26 | 807 |
| John 16 | 75.1% | 33 | 970 |
| John 5 | 74.3% | 46 | 1,147 |
| John 4 | 73.7% | 54 | 1,343 |
| John 10 | 73.7% | 42 | 986 |
| John 20 | 73.6% | 31 | 913 |
| John 21 | 73.5% | 25 | 830 |
| John 8 | 73.4% | 59 | 1,730 |
| John 13 | 73% | 38 | 1,043 |
| John 6 | 72.7% | 71 | 1,774 |
| John 2 | 72.1% | 25 | 623 |
| John 7 | 70.8% | 52 | 1,299 |
| John 18 | 70.5% | 40 | 1,197 |
| John 11 | 70.2% | 57 | 1,375 |
| John 1 | 70% | 51 | 1,284 |
| John 12 | 68.3% | 50 | 1,295 |
| John 3 | 65.9% | 36 | 863 |
| John 19 | 64.8% | 42 | 1,342 |

Page: https://chinese-bible.com/en/reference/books/john · Read it: https://chinese-bible.com/en/john

## Method

- Text: 和合本 (Chinese Union Version), simplified script — public domain
- Words: forward maximum matching against CC-CEDICT (this site's own segmentation)
- 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)
- Computed: 2026-09-22

These are reproducible counts over a public-domain text, not a peer-reviewed study. Difficulty ranks are one stated formula, not a validated readability score.


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- 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).
- Bible text: public domain — 和合本 · World English Bible · Louis Segond 1910.
- Built with https://chinese-bible.com