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How many characters is enough?
The standard table of general-use Chinese characters runs to 8,105, but literacy is a far smaller number: around 3,000 covers the great majority of a newspaper, and 2,500 of those are designated the everyday set. HSK, the proficiency examination, bands them accordingly, and this course has worked within its first two levels. The mainland writes simplified forms while Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau keep traditional ones, and a reader of either can usually manage the other after some adjustment. You know a good many more than you did.