u/Chenyuluoyan

If you learn 个 as the default Chinese measure word, time expressions can feel inconsistent:

三个月 ✓

三个年 ✗

五个天 ✗

The reason is that some time units already do the counting themselves.

年, 天, 周 and 分钟 normally do not need 个:

我学中文学了三年。

I've studied Chinese for three years.

他两天后回来。

He'll return in two days.

我们等了十分钟。

We waited for ten minutes.

月 is different. When it describes a length of time, it normally needs 个:

一个月

one month

三个月

three months

半个月

half a month

Without 个, 一月 and 三月 usually mean January and March rather than durations.

小时 and 星期 are more flexible:

两小时 / 两个小时

two hours

一星期 / 一个星期

one week

In everyday conversation, the versions with 个 are very common.

So the short version is:

三年, 五天, 两周, 十分钟

but

三个月, 两个小时, 一个星期

More beginner grammar from the official HSK 3.0 syllabus:

HSK 3 is usually summarized as a vocabulary target: learn 1,000 cumulative words and move on to HSK 4. I recently went through the full HSK 3.0 syllabus for level 3, including the topic list, task descriptions and grammar appendix. The word count is probably the least interesting part.

Size: HSK 3 now has 1,000 cumulative vocabulary entries. The old HSK 2.0 level had 600. The current syllabus also lists 22 task areas, 54 detailed topics and 97 grammar rows.

What learners are expected to do has changed more than the number suggests. HSK 3 is no longer limited to short transactions and basic personal information. Learners are expected to describe what happened, explain a simple reason or result, talk about an experience and give a basic opinion.

Some of the task examples are surprisingly practical. They include reporting a lost item, asking for leave, borrowing and returning things, and handling basic questions when applying for a bank card, phone card or passport. Learners should also be able to describe ordering delivery, bargaining in a shop, following medical instructions, reading a work notice and discussing an office schedule.

The topic list is broader too. It covers family relationships and household responsibilities, family education, workplace performance and colleague relationships, environmental protection, modern city life, sports competitions, regional differences and traditional customs. The writing requirement is still modest, often one or two sentences, but the range of situations is much wider than a typical beginner textbook suggests.

Grammar is where it becomes obvious:

- 把 and 被 sentences appear here, so learners need to describe what someone did to an object and what happened to that object.

- Result, directional and potential complements expand. It is no longer only 看完 or 走进去. HSK 3 adds patterns such as 听得懂, 拿不动 and verbs followed by 到, 住, 走 or 上.

- Comparisons get more flexible: A跟B一样, A不比B..., and patterns such as A比B早来十分钟.

- Longer relationships between clauses become normal: 虽然……可是……, 如果……就……, 只有……才……, 只要……就…… and 不但……而且…….

That combination changes what an HSK 3 learner can say. Instead of producing separate facts, you can start connecting events: what happened first, what changed, why something happened, whether a condition was met and how one thing compares with another.

My practical takeaway is to spend less time treating the 1,000 words as an isolated checklist. Practice the grammar through short accounts of real situations: losing something, visiting a doctor, dealing with a work problem or explaining a trip. If you can connect the steps and the result clearly, you are practicing what the syllabus actually asks for.

HSK 3 is still elementary Chinese, but it is the level where sentences begin doing much more work.

I pulled this from the official HSK 3.0 task, topic and grammar lists. I organized the full HSK 3 syllabus in English here.

Most HSK summaries reduce each level to a vocabulary count:

HSK 3 = 1,000 cumulative words.

But the official HSK 3.0 syllabus also describes what learners should be able

to do with those words. Its HSK 3 section contains 22 task areas, 54 detailed

topics and 97 grammar rows.

Some of the task examples feel much more current than the usual textbook

dialogues about ordering food.

For travel, learners may need to:

- Describe how they travelled somewhere

- Explain a simple route or itinerary

- Discuss experiences such as taking high-speed rail or cycling

The modern-life section includes simple questions about high-speed rail, new

payment methods and changes to city facilities.

The writing tasks even give examples such as writing one or two sentences about

riding high-speed rail or paying with a phone.

A practice question based on this section might look like:

你坐过高铁吗？感觉怎么样？

Nǐ zuòguo gāotiě ma? Gǎnjué zěnmeyàng?

Have you taken high-speed rail? What was it like?

你平时用手机支付吗？

Nǐ píngshí yòng shǒujī zhīfù ma?

Do you normally pay using your phone?

There is an important distinction here: the task list and vocabulary list are

not the same thing.

高铁 is introduced as an HSK 3 vocabulary entry. 手机 appears at an earlier

level. 支付 first appears in the HSK 4 vocabulary list.

So "paying with a phone" is an HSK 3 task example, but that does not mean every

word in the phrase is introduced at HSK 3.

This is why the vocabulary list alone gives an incomplete picture. The task

list shows the situations learners are expected to handle, while the vocabulary

list shows when individual words are introduced.

If you translate word by word, you might try:

我放钥匙在桌子上。

People will probably understand you, but Chinese normally uses 把 here:

我把钥匙放在桌子上了。

Wǒ bǎ yàoshi fàng zài zhuōzi shàng le.

I put the keys on the table.

把 is useful when the object is already known and the important information is

what happens to it.

A common pattern is:

subject + 把 + object + action + result or destination

A few everyday examples:

请把文件发给我。

Qǐng bǎ wénjiàn fā gěi wǒ.

Please send me the file.

我终于把作业写完了。

Wǒ zhōngyú bǎ zuòyè xiěwán le.

I finally finished the homework.

你能把那个杯子拿过来吗？

Nǐ néng bǎ nàge bēizi ná guòlái ma?

Can you bring that cup over?

把 usually needs something after the verb. For example:

我把书看。 ❌

我把书看完了。 ✅

The first sentence feels unfinished. The second tells us what happened to the

book: I finished reading it.

把 and 被 can also describe the same event from different sides:

他把我的手机拿走了。

He took my phone away.

我的手机被他拿走了。

My phone was taken away by him.

把 focuses on what the person did to the phone.

被 puts the phone first and focuses on what happened to it.

Both patterns appear in the official HSK 3.0 grammar list.
Which one gives you more trouble: 把 or 被?

HSK 2 adds 196 new words on top of HSK 1's 300, for a cumulative total of 496. I went through the official syllabus (the grammar section for level 2 starts around p.386 of the CLEC PDF) and wrote down what is actually new at this level.

The vocabulary stays in the same domains as HSK 1: family, food, travel, shopping, weather. There is no new subject matter. Almost everything new is grammar, and the HSK 2 grammar list is long.

HSK 2 adds the other two "de" particles. HSK 1 only had 的. Now there is also 得, which links a verb to a complement (说得很好), and 地, which turns an adjective into an adverb (慢慢地走). All three sound identical in speech. When I posted the HSK 1 breakdown, a commenter mentioned they had used the two functions of 了 interchangeably for months because nobody flagged it early. The three de's are the same kind of thing, easier to get right at this stage than to unlearn later.

HSK 2 also adds two aspect markers: 过 for past experiences (你去过中国吗) and 着 for ongoing states (门开着). Together with 了 from HSK 1, that covers most of the aspect system within the first two levels.

Complements are the biggest single addition. Result complements attach an outcome to a verb: 听懂 (listen and understand), 做完 (finish doing), 写错 (write incorrectly). Directional complements combine verbs with 来 or 去, then with 上/下/进/出/过/回, and then with compounds like 出来, 过去, 起来, 回去. The compound forms have extended meanings that are not obvious from their parts, and new ones keep appearing for years. The syllabus starts them here.

比 comparisons (A 比 B + adjective) and the 是……的 pattern for emphasizing when, where, or how something happened (我是昨天来的) are both introduced at HSK 2. So is reduplication: 看看 or 看一看 for "have a look", 高高兴兴 for "happily".

Paired connectors also start at this level: 因为……所以…… (because), 虽然……但是…… (although), 一……就…… (as soon as).

If you are studying for HSK 2 or teaching it, my main suggestion is to budget time by the grammar list, not the word list. The 196 words are the quick part. The complements and the 得/地 distinction need real practice, and they are also the parts that cause problems later when they get skimmed.

The HSK 1 version of this post is here

HSK 1 is usually treated as the easy level you pass through quickly, and by wordlist it is. But I recently read through the full HSK 3.0 syllabus for level 1, the topic and task lists and the grammar appendix, not just the vocabulary, and a few things stood out that I had not seen laid out clearly before. Posting them here in case they are useful.

Size: HSK 1 is now 300 words. Under the old HSK 2.0 it was 150, so the reform doubled it. If you studied from older materials, HSK 1 now covers a bit more than it used to.

Vocabulary: the 300 words map closely to everyday survival situations, such as personal information, family, dates and times, weather, food and ordering, shopping and prices, directions, basic health and seeing a doctor, school, and simple work. One thing I noticed is how little emotional vocabulary there is. The only feeling words at HSK 1 are 高兴 (happy), 喜欢 (like), and 爱 (love). You can handle practical situations but not really describe how you feel about them.

Grammar is where HSK 1 is heavier than its reputation. The vocabulary is simple, but the grammar syllabus already introduces several things that learners often struggle with later:

- Modal verbs: 会, 能, and 可以 (three ways to express "can"), plus 想 and 要 for "want to," are all included. The differences between them are not obvious and are rarely explained at this stage.

- Separable verbs (离合词): 睡觉, 说话, 上课, and 生病 appear as vocabulary but are grammatically separable (for example 睡了一个好觉). Many learners treat them as fixed words for a long time before realizing they can split.

- Both uses of 了: HSK 1 includes 了 for completed actions and 了 for a change of state. These are two different functions of the same particle, introduced together with little distinction between them.

- Measure words: HSK 1 has nine noun measure words (个, 本, 块, 件, 只, 口, and others). Chinese requires a measure word to count nouns, so these cannot be skipped.

- Sentence-final particles: 吗, 吧, and 呢 are all here. They change the tone or function of a sentence and take some practice to use naturally.

Sentence patterns: HSK 1 also covers basic sentence structures, including 是 sentences, 有 for possession, existential 有 (there is/are), and serial-verb sentences where two verbs combine (我去商店买东西, "I go to the store to buy things"). That is more structural range than the beginner label suggests.

The 300 words come fairly easily through reading and listening, so the grammar is the part worth spending deliberate time on early, especially measure words, the two functions of 了, and separable verbs. HSK 1 is not difficult, but it is a more complete foundation than the wordlist alone suggests. Being comfortable with those at HSK 1 makes HSK 2 and 3 noticeably smoother.