Why learn by frequency? Not all Chinese characters are equally useful. In fact, the top 100 most frequent characters cover roughly 42% of all written Chinese, and the top 1,000 cover about 89%. Learning characters in frequency order is one of the most efficient study strategies because you immediately start recognizing the characters you'll encounter most often in books, news, signs, and everyday conversation.
This frequency list is based on corpus data from modern Chinese texts, ranking 5000 characters by how often they actually appear, not by textbook order or HSK level. Each character links to its full HanziCraft page with decomposition, meaning, and example words.
How to use this list: Start from the top and work your way down. If you're a beginner, focus on the first 100-250 characters. Intermediate learners should aim for the top 1,000. Advanced learners can use this list to fill in gaps in their knowledge of less common characters.
If you want to practice your handwriting & memorization, use this 📝 printable practice worksheet for the top 250 characters to get started.
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