HSK 6 (2025)

The HSK (汉语水平考试, Hànyǔ Shuǐpíng Kǎoshì) is the standardised Chinese proficiency test for non-native speakers. This deck contains the 1,800 new words of HSK 6 from the official HSK 3.0 syllabus, published in November 2025, which the new exam uses from 13 December 2026. Together with the earlier levels, that brings you to 5,400 words. The new HSK has nine levels across three stages, and at this level you also need to write 700 characters from memory in total. Our HSK 6 Handwriting (2025) deck covers the 150 new ones. Unlike most official HSK lists, which run alphabetically, this deck is sorted by how useful each word is. Alphabetical order doesn't really make sense in Chinese, because words that sit next to each other in pinyin have nothing to do with each other, so you could spend weeks on rare words before reaching everyday ones. Many frequency lists have a different problem: they rely on old newspaper text, which isn't how people actually talk. We rank every word using two very different sources: a huge corpus from Beijing Language and Culture University, covering news, literature, blogs and social media, and SUBTLEX-CH, which is built from film and TV subtitles. A word's best score in either source sets its place, so words that are common in writing or in everyday speech both come early. That means you start with words like 中, 嘿, 该 and 于, and learn the most useful vocabulary from day one. To match the official word count, we've kept the syllabus's two separate entries for 局, 卷, 料, 露, 散 and 吐, so each appears twice, with the second copy at the very end of the deck.