HSK to CEFR Calculator

Estimate your CEFR level based on which HSK exam you've passed.

level
Your CEFR level estimate is around A1 🤠
The Council of Europe describes A1 as a Basic User, who:
Can understand and use familiar everyday expressions and very basic phrases aimed at the satisfaction of needs of a concrete type. Can introduce him/herself and others and can ask and answer questions about personal details such as where he/she lives, people he/she knows and things he/she has. Can interact in a simple way provided the other person talks slowly and clearly and is prepared to help.
Source: Council of Europe CEFR Global Scale

How To Use This Calculator

This calculator gives you a rough estimate for what your CEFR level might be based on which HSK exam you’ve passed.

The numbers aren’t– and can’t be– exact, but they should give you a general idea of where you stand.

If you’re curious about how these estimates were calculated, we’ve outline the whole process below.

Enjoy!

How To Estimate CEFR Levels From HSK Level

The governing body behind the HSK exam, The CLEC (Center for Language Education and Cooperation– formerly known as “Hanban”) published equivalences between HSK levels and CEFR levels. These estimates were available on the official HSK website as recently as 2023, and are shown in the table below.

Original Estimates (🚨 Now Outdated 🚨)

HSK LevelWords KnownCEFR Estimate
65,000C21
52,500C12
41,200B23
3600B14
2300A25
1150A16

These estimates were disputed by several organizations including the Fachverband Chinesisch for being unrealistic, and are no longer published on the official website for the HSK exam.

The Fachverband Chinesisch suggested that the CLEC’s proposed 150 words to reach HSK level 1 was far too few to reach CEFR level A1, even for European languages.7 The Fachverband Chinesisch proposed the following adjusted equivalences:

CEFR LevelHSK Level
C2HSK 6+
C1HSK 6+
B2HSK 6
B1HSK 5
A2HSK 4
A1HSK 1-3
Source: Fachverband Chinesisch e.V.7

Hours To Reach Each Level

Based on estimates published by the U.S. Foreign Service Institute (FSI)8 and Cambridge English9, the following table estimates the number of study hours required to reach each CEFR level in Mandarin Chinese, along with the corresponding HSK level based on the Fachverband Chinesisch estimates:

CEFR LevelTotal Hours (approximate)HSK Level
C24,500–5,400HSK 6+
C13,150–3,600HSK 6+
B22,250–2,700HSK 6
B11,575–1,800HSK 5
A2810–900HSK 4
A1405–450HSK 1-3

How These Estimates Were Calculated

To start, we need a baseline for CEFR level progression in terms of study hours.

There’s a helpful article on the Cambridge English Support Site, where a moderator gives a rough estimate table. It progresses in increments of ~200 hours to eventually reach a 700–800 hour estimate to reach CEFR level C1 and 1,000–1,200 hours for C2.9 (See below.)

The U.S. Foreign Service Institute (FSI) estimates suggest 2,200 hours to reach “Professional Working Proficiency” in Mandarin Chinese– which they define as a score of 3 on the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) scale.

ILR 3 is roughly equivalent to CEFR level C1, as estimated by the American University Center of Provence10.

So, if we “normalize” the general Cambridge estimates to match the more specific FSI estimates for profiency in Mandarin Chinese (CEFR level C1), we need to go from 800 hours to 3,600 hours– a 4.5x increase.

Therefore, we can multiply the Cambridge estimates by 4.5 to get a rough estimate of hours required to reach each CEFR level in Mandarin Chinese, as follows:

CEFR LevelCambridge Estimate (Hours)Normalized Estimate (4.5x)
C21,000–1,2004,500–5,400
C1700–8003,150–3,600
B2500–6002,250–2,700
B1350–4001,575–1,800
A2180–200810–900
A190–100405–450

This 4.5x multiplier isn’t terribly far off from the FSI estimates for the difference in learning an easier “Category I” language vs. learning a “Category IV” (“Super hard”) language.

Category I languages are estimated to take around 24 weeks for students to learn, while Category IV languages are estimated to take around 88 weeks. This is a 3.67x increase in time required. Not the full 4.5x increase, but within the same ballpark.

Given that the FSI’s definition of “proficiency” uses a different measure and is only approximated to be around the B2/C1 level, it’s reasonable that there will be some variance in the estimates.

It could also be argued that the Cambridge English estimates are quite optimistic.

A Word About Estimates

Before I send you off to get back to studying, I want to stress that these are all very rough estimates.

There are many factors that determine how long it will take you to learn Chinese. We all have different goals and strengths.

At the end of the day– whether it takes you 300 hours or 3,000 hours to reach your goals, it’s going to take time and effort.

So get back to work, and have fun. You got this! 💪

References

  1. 汉语考试服务网 (Hànyǔ Kǎoshì Fúwù Wǎng). (n.d.). HSK Level VI. Archived from the Wayback Machine. Retrieved October 13, 2025. ↩

  2. 汉语考试服务网 (Hànyǔ Kǎoshì Fúwù Wǎng). (n.d.). HSK Level V. Archived from the Wayback Machine. Retrieved October 13, 2025. ↩

  3. 汉语考试服务网 (Hànyǔ Kǎoshì Fúwù Wǎng). (n.d.). HSK Level IV. Archived from the Wayback Machine. Retrieved October 13, 2025. ↩

  4. 汉语考试服务网 (Hànyǔ Kǎoshì Fúwù Wǎng). (n.d.). HSK Level III. Archived from the Wayback Machine. Retrieved October 13, 2025. ↩

  5. 汉语考试服务网 (Hànyǔ Kǎoshì Fúwù Wǎng). (n.d.). HSK Level II. Archived from the Wayback Machine. Retrieved October 13, 2025. ↩

  6. 汉语考试服务网 (Hànyǔ Kǎoshì Fúwù Wǎng). (n.d.). HSK Level I. Archived from the Wayback Machine. Retrieved October 13, 2025. ↩

  7. Fachverband Chinesisch e.V. (2010), June 1. Erklärung des Fachverbands Chinesisch e.V. zur neuen Chinesischprüfung HSK. ↩ ↩2

  8. U.S. Department of State, Foreign Service Institute. (2025, September 8). Foreign language training. Retrieved October 11, 2025. ↩

  9. Guided learning hours. (2023, October 23). Cambridge English Support Site. https://support.cambridgeenglish.org/hc/en-gb/articles/202838506-Guided-learning-hours ↩ ↩2

  10. American University Center of Provence. (n.d.). Understanding the TEF results [PDF]. Archived from the Wayback Machine. Retrieved October 11, 2025. ↩