Learn Chinese Through Stories
Graded Chinese stories for every HSK level, each one written inside that level’s HSK 3.0 word list. Tap any word for its pinyin, meaning and sound — no dictionary, no account.
Try it: tap any word below
《红雨伞》 · HSK 3 · Chapter 1
星期一下午六点，外面下着大雨。林小雨站在公司楼下的门口，没有伞。早上出门的时候，天还是晴的。她看了看手机：雨要下到晚上十点。
门口左边放着一把红色的伞。伞已经很旧了，上面画着一只大熊猫。林小雨每天都从这里走过，好像见过它，可是一直没有注意过。
Tap any word
Its pinyin, meaning and HSK level appear here. The ← and → keys move between words.
- Tap a word: pinyin, meaning, HSK level
- Translate the sentence to check yourself
- Hear any word
- Save words to your flashcards
One story for each HSK level
Start at the level you are studying for, or one below it. Every story is split into chapters short enough to read in one sitting.
- HSK 1米饭MifanOn a rainy night a student takes in a lost little cat, and the search for its owner leads her to an eighty-year-old man who lives alone.3 chapters589 characters100% in level
- HSK 2坐错车The Wrong TrainAnna gets on the wrong train one Saturday, her phone dies in a town she has never heard of, and a little noodle shop keeps bringing her back.4 chapters1,074 characters99.6% in level
- HSK 3红雨伞The Red UmbrellaAll week a red umbrella by the office door keeps changing hands, and on Friday morning Lin Xiaoyu waits to see who has been leaving it there.4 chapters1,335 characters99.4% in level
- HSK 4考试前的一夜The Night Before the ExamThe night before her HSK 4 exam, Anna's passport is gone — and the only person who can help is the grumpy caretaker she has been avoiding for a year.5 chapters2,649 characters99.9% in level
- HSK 5六点半的粥Porridge at Six-ThirtyEvery evening an old woman in Hangzhou orders one bowl of plain porridge she hardly eats, and the delivery rider slowly works out what she is really paying for.5 chapters3,012 characters99.3% in level
- HSK 6没洗的胶卷The Undeveloped FilmClearing out her late grandfather's photo studio before the street is torn down, Lin Xiao finds eleven rolls of film he shot in the 1990s and never developed — and a card that says why.5 chapters3,786 characters99.1% in level
- HSK 7–9句子的尾巴The Tails of SentencesA linguistics student climbs to a mountain village to record a dying dialect word by word, and finds that its oldest speaker will only give it to her as stories.6 chapters5,151 characters99.8% in level
Why reading matters for the HSK
A word list gets a word into your head. Reading is what makes it come back fast enough to use in the exam — inside a sentence, next to the words it usually keeps company with.
The reading section is a race
Every level has a timed reading section. From HSK 4 to HSK 6 you get under a minute per question — and those questions sit on whole passages, not single sentences. Candidates who know the words still run out of minutes. Reading speed only comes from reading a lot.
98% is the line between reading and decoding
Research on second-language reading (Hu & Nation, 2000; Nation, 2006) puts comfortable, unassisted reading at about 98% of the words known — one unknown word in fifty. Real Chinese text is far below that for most learners, which is why it feels like work. A graded story is written to sit on that line.
A word met many times is a word kept
In a well-known study of learners reading a graded reader (Waring & Takaki, 2003), words that came up many times were far more likely to be remembered months later than words met once or twice. A story brings its words back on purpose; a word list shows each one once.
| Level | Questions | Minutes | Each |
|---|---|---|---|
| HSK 1 | 20 | 20 | 60s |
| HSK 2 | 25 | 25 | 60s |
| HSK 3 | 30 | 30 | 60s |
| HSK 4 | 40 | 30 | 45s |
| HSK 5 | 45 | 35 | 47s |
| HSK 6 | 50 | 40 | 48s |
| HSK 7–9 | 47 | 60 | 77s |
Section time divided by questions, from the official 3.0 paper structure — the same figures as each level’s reading page.
How to learn with a story
Ten minutes a day is enough. The point is to read a lot of easy text rather than a little hard text, so choose a level where most sentences make sense the first time.
- 1
Pick the right level
Read at your exam level to meet new words. Read one level below to build speed. Both count in the exam hall.
- 2
Glance at the key words
Each story’s front page lists the words from your level it uses most. Look at them once. Don’t memorise them — the story will do that.
- 3
Read the chapter through
Tap a word only when it stops the sentence making sense. Keep pinyin off if you can: recognising characters without it is what the reading section tests.
- 4
Check it, then keep the words
Answer the questions at the end of the chapter. The words you tapped are listed there — save them to your flashcards and the drill brings them back.
How the stories are written
Every story is written for one level and checked by script against the HSK 3.0 syllabus before it goes up. The check is the same for every story, and a story that fails it is not published.
Written inside the word list
Every sentence is split into words and matched against the 11,000 words of the HSK 3.0 syllabus (2025). At least 98% of the words in a story sit at or below its level.
The other 2% is marked, not hidden
Words above the level carry a dotted underline in their level’s colour, and each one has pinyin and a meaning when you tap it. Names are underlined too, so you never try to learn one.
Your level’s own words, again and again
A story must take a share of its words from its own level’s band, so an HSK 4 story teaches HSK 4 words rather than HSK 2 words in longer sentences — and it reuses them across chapters.
Real stories for adults
Offices, trains, exams, families — situations with a turn in them and an ending. Each chapter has two or three questions in the manner of the reading section, and every sentence has an English translation.
| Level | Words known | Chapters | Characters per chapter |
|---|---|---|---|
| HSK 1 | 300 | 3 | 120–220 |
| HSK 2 | 500 | 3–4 | 180–320 |
| HSK 3 | 1,000 | 4 | 280–450 |
| HSK 4 | 2,000 | 4–5 | 420–650 |
| HSK 5 | 3,600 | 5 | 560–850 |
| HSK 6 | 5,400 | 5–6 | 700–1000 |
| HSK 7–9 | 11,000 | 6 | 800–1200 |
Words known is cumulative: an HSK 4 reader knows HSK 1–4. Characters exclude punctuation. The import script refuses a story outside these numbers.
| Story | In level | Own-level words | Glossed extras |
|---|---|---|---|
| 米饭HSK 1 | 100% | — | 0 |
| 坐错车HSK 2 | 99.6% | 73 | 1 |
| 红雨伞HSK 3 | 99.4% | 70 | 2 |
| 考试前的一夜HSK 4 | 99.9% | 120 | 1 |
| 六点半的粥HSK 5 | 99.3% | 91 | 3 |
| 没洗的胶卷HSK 6 | 99.1% | 72 | 2 |
| 句子的尾巴HSK 7–9 | 99.8% | 120 | 4 |
In level: share of running words at or below the story’s level, names excluded. Own-level words: distinct words from the level’s own band. Glossed extras: distinct words above the level.
Questions about the stories
Are the stories free?
Yes — every story and every chapter, with the word lookup, the translations and the audio, and no account. Words you save go into the same flashcard deck as the vocabulary pages, kept in your browser.
Which level should I read?
The level you are preparing for, if most sentences make sense on the first read. If you are tapping more than a word or two per sentence, drop a level: easy reading done often beats hard reading done rarely. The level test places you in three minutes.
Are they written for HSK 3.0 or HSK 2.0?
HSK 3.0 — the syllabus published in November 2025. Its levels are larger than 2.0’s: HSK 3.0 level 3 is 1,000 words, where 2.0 level 3 was 600. If you are sitting a 2.0 paper, read about one level below your exam.
How many stories are there?
One per level today, from HSK 1 to HSK 7–9, with more being written. Each level page lists what is there.
Is there audio?
Every word can be heard: tap it and press the speaker. Recorded narration of whole chapters is not there yet.
Why not just read real Chinese?
You should, eventually. But at HSK 3 or 4 a news article or a novel has too many unknown words to read — you end up decoding one sentence at a time. Graded stories are the bridge: real reading, at a level where it works.
Word levels are from 《中文水平考试（HSK）考试大纲》 (CTI, 2025-11). English meanings for words off the syllabus are from CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0). Stories and translations are HSKWin’s own.