#LearnChineseCharacters

There are over 80,000 Chinese characters, but most of them are seldom used today. So how many Chinese characters do you need to know? For basic reading and writing of modern Chinese, you only need a few thousands. Here are the coverage rates of the most frequently used Chinese characters: Most frequently used 1,000 characters: 90% (Coverage rate) Most frequently used 2,500 characters: 98.0% (Coverage rate) Most frequently used 3,500 characters: 99.5% (Coverage rate) Chinese characters are far more intricate than western letters and the composition of the main Chinese characters can be described in three ways: