# Lamentations in Chinese — vocabulary profile

> Lamentations uses 797 distinct Chinese characters and 903 distinct words across 4,081 characters and 154 verses of the Chinese Union Version (和合本, simplified). 59% of its word tokens are HSK 1-3, ranking it 33rd of 66 books from easiest to hardest by that measure.

| Measure | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Chapters | 5 |
| Verses | 154 |
| Chinese characters | 4,081 |
| Distinct characters | 797 |
| Word tokens | 2,857 |
| Distinct words | 903 |
| Average verse | 27 characters |
| HSK 1-3 word tokens | 59% |
| HSK 1-6 word tokens | 69.6% |
| Not in HSK 1-9 | 23.5% |
| Difficulty rank | 33 of 66 (1 = easiest) |
| Reading time | 16 min at 260 chars/min |
| Testament | Old Testament |

## Most frequent words in this book

| # | Word | Occurrences |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | 耶和华 | 38 |
| 2 | 使 | 38 |
| 3 | 人 | 29 |
| 4 | 因 | 23 |
| 5 | 锡安 | 19 |
| 6 | 民 | 18 |
| 7 | 仇敌 | 16 |
| 8 | 像 | 14 |
| 9 | 说 | 14 |
| 10 | 求 | 13 |
| 11 | 主 | 13 |
| 12 | 要 | 12 |
| 13 | 如 | 11 |
| 14 | 无人 | 11 |
| 15 | 日子 | 10 |
| 16 | 城 | 9 |
| 17 | 敌人 | 9 |
| 18 | 一样 | 9 |
| 19 | 众 | 9 |
| 20 | 受 | 8 |
| 21 | 手 | 8 |
| 22 | 必 | 8 |
| 23 | 发怒 | 8 |
| 24 | 一切 | 7 |
| 25 | 地 | 7 |
| 26 | 圣 | 7 |
| 27 | 耶路撒冷 | 7 |
| 28 | 用 | 7 |
| 29 | 观看 | 7 |
| 30 | 哪 | 7 |
| 31 | 事 | 7 |
| 32 | 并不 | 7 |
| 33 | 以致 | 7 |
| 34 | 街上 | 7 |
| 35 | 竟 | 6 |
| 36 | 安慰 | 6 |
| 37 | 祭司 | 6 |
| 38 | 追赶 | 6 |
| 39 | 见 | 6 |
| 40 | 发昏 | 6 |
| 41 | 当 | 6 |
| 42 | 倒 | 6 |
| 43 | 罪孽 | 6 |
| 44 | 比 | 6 |
| 45 | 现在 | 5 |
| 46 | 列国 | 5 |
| 47 | 成为 | 5 |
| 48 | 犹大 | 5 |
| 49 | 叹息 | 5 |
| 50 | 处女 | 5 |

## Chapters, easiest first

| Chapter | HSK 1-3 | Verses | Characters |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Lamentations 3 | 62.2% | 66 | 1,046 |
| Lamentations 1 | 60.6% | 22 | 936 |
| Lamentations 5 | 57.2% | 22 | 395 |
| Lamentations 4 | 57.1% | 22 | 713 |
| Lamentations 2 | 56.1% | 22 | 991 |

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

## 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.


---

- 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