# 22.5% of Bible Words Are Not in HSK

> 22.5% of the word tokens in the Chinese Union Version (和合本, simplified) are not on any HSK 1-9 list, which is why no HSK level reaches full coverage: the whole of HSK 1-9 accounts for 77.5% of the text.

Question: Bible words not in HSK
Answer: 22.5%
Page: https://chinese-bible.com/en/reference/characters-not-in-hsk

HSK is a proficiency syllabus for contemporary Mandarin, so it has no reason to include 耶和华 or 祭司. The gap it leaves is measurable: 22.5% of the 663,876 word tokens in the text, drawn from a vocabulary of 11,168 distinct words.

Most of it is names. 662 of the words here read as proper names by their dictionary gloss — people, peoples and places, transliterated character by character for sound. The rest is the vocabulary of worship, sacrifice and law.

The practical consequence: a course gets you to 71.4% and no further, and the remainder has to come from the text. That is what a Bible-specific deck is for, and it is a small list compared to an HSK level — the words repeat constantly once you meet them.

## Where the words come from

| Source | Share of word tokens |
| --- | --- |
| HSK 1-3 | 59.7% |
| HSK 4-6 | 11.7% |
| HSK 7-9 | 6.1% |
| Not in HSK | 22.5% |


## Questions

**Are the non-HSK words hard?**

Not individually — they are just unlisted. They repeat far more often inside Scripture than an HSK 6 word does, so they are learned quickly from reading.

**Which HSK list is this?**

HSK 3.0 levels from the complete-hsk-vocabulary list; band 7 covers HSK 7-9.

**Is there a deck for exactly these words?**

The book and topic decks are built from Bible frequency, not from HSK, so they cover this vocabulary directly.

## 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