HSK 1 Character List: All 246 Characters You Need to Know

HSK 1 is the starting point for Chinese character learning. The 2026 HSK syllabus requires 246 characters at this level -- these are the most fundamental building blocks of written Chinese. Learn these well, and you'll be able to read basic sentences, understand common signs, and start recognizing how characters work.

What makes these 246 characters special is that they include many of the highest-frequency characters in the Chinese language. Characters like 的 (de), 是 (shì), 不 (bù), and 了 (le) appear in virtually every Chinese text you'll encounter. Learning them isn't just about passing an exam -- it's about building the core vocabulary that everything else rests on.

Even at HSK 1, radical patterns start to emerge. The most common radical in this level is 口 (mouth), appearing in 24 characters including 吃 (to eat), 吗 (question particle), 听 (to listen), and 和 (and). The 亻 (person) radical shows up in 15 characters like 他 (he), 你 (you), 们 (plural marker), and 做 (to do).

Other frequent radicals at this level include 木 (wood) in characters like 来 (to come), 本 (root/book), and 校 (school); 讠 (speech) in 说 (to speak), 话 (words), and 语 (language); and 日 (sun) in 时 (time), 明 (bright), and 早 (early).

Understanding these radicals early gives you a structural advantage. When you see an unfamiliar character with 口 on the left, you can guess it relates to speech or the mouth. When you see 亻, it likely involves people. This isn't memorization -- it's pattern recognition, and it compounds as you learn more characters. For more on radicals, see our complete guide to Chinese radicals.

Rather than working through the list alphabetically or randomly, consider studying HSK 1 characters in frequency order. The table below is already sorted this way. Characters ranked 1-50 (的 through 里) appear in almost every Chinese text, so they give you the highest return on investment.

Another effective approach is to study by character families -- groups of characters that share components. For example, learn 人 (person) and 大 (big) together, since 大 is literally a person with arms spread wide. Learn 日 (sun) and 明 (bright) together, since 明 combines 日 (sun) and 月 (moon). This structural approach is what apps like HanziFeed are built around.

For more on why characters aren't random symbols, see our article on how Chinese characters actually work.

HSK 1 contains several natural character groupings worth studying together:

All 246 HSK 1 characters, sorted by frequency rank. Lower frequency rank means the character appears more often in modern Chinese text.

Once you're comfortable with these 246 characters, HSK 2 adds another 125 characters for a cumulative total of 371. The jump from HSK 1 to HSK 2 is manageable -- many HSK 2 characters build on radicals and components you'll already know from this level.

For a broader look at the HSK system and how it changed in 2026, see our HSK 2026 changes explained guide. And if you want to understand how many characters you ultimately need, check out how many Chinese characters do you need to know.