# 971 Characters Cover 95% of the Bible

> Knowing the 971 most frequent characters of the Chinese Union Version (和合本, simplified) is enough to recognise 95% of the characters on the page; 73 characters already cover half of it, and the full text uses 2,996.

Question: how many characters to read the Bible
Answer: 971
Page: https://chinese-bible.com/en/reference/characters-needed-to-read-the-bible

Character frequency in Chinese follows a steep curve, and Scripture is no exception: a small core carries most of the text. This page states where that curve sits for the Chinese Bible specifically, computed over every character occurrence in the simplified text.

What 95% coverage feels like in practice: roughly one character in twenty is unfamiliar, which is about one per verse at an average verse length of 30 characters. That is comfortable with a tap-to-reveal reader and uncomfortable without one. For unassisted reading, the 1,699-character mark is the one to aim at.

Coverage is not the same as comprehension. Knowing every character in a verse does not mean knowing every word: 22.5% of the Bible's word tokens sit outside the HSK lists, largely names and terms specific to Scripture.

## Characters and words needed, side by side

| Coverage | Characters needed | Words needed |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 50% | 73 | 99 |
| 80% | 355 | 825 |
| 90% | 648 | 1,900 |
| 95% | 971 | 3,253 |
| 99% | 1,699 | 6,802 |

Both columns are computed over token occurrences, not over the vocabulary list.

## Questions

**Which characters are they?**

The most frequent are 的 他 你 我 们 人 在 和 是 耶 说 不. The site publishes the ranked list, and the 32 characters that occur in all 66 books have a page of their own.

**Where should a beginner start reading?**

John has the highest share of HSK 1-3 vocabulary (72.3%), and the shortest books — 2 John, 3 John, Philemon — use the fewest distinct characters.

**Does pinyin help or hinder?**

Both, which is why it is a column you can switch off. Reading with pinyin keeps you moving; turning it off is how you find out which characters you actually know.

## 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