What's considered TOO polite in China - Chinese Comprehensible Input - Advanced Beginner

YouTube · Xiaogua Chinese · Learner content · 2025/12/10
2025/12/10
Speech duration
6min 7s
Unique characters · 67 once
173
Word count
637
Average sentence length
7.0
Length
7:47
Unique words · 79 once
162
Syllables per minute
145
Script
Simplified 简
Sentences
126
Difficulty
Intermediatedifficulty

Difficulty is estimated from vocabulary: knowing common words through Level 39 covers about 95% of the words in this content — roughly 1 unfamiliar word in 20, the coverage research links to comfortable listening. Level 39 sits in the Intermediate range.

How difficulty works
Intermediate · 39

Difficulty is estimated from vocabulary: knowing common words through Level 39 covers about 95% of the words in this content — roughly 1 unfamiliar word in 20, the coverage research links to comfortable listening. Level 39 sits in the Intermediate range.

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Vocab coverage

The Level you need to know each share of this video’s words. The dark 95% step is its difficulty.

HSK 3.0 coverage

Which HSK 3.0 list each of this video’s words comes from.

  • HSK 1 73%
  • HSK 2 11%
  • HSK 3 7%
  • HSK 4 1%
  • HSK 5 2%
  • HSK 6 0%
  • HSK 7–9 0%
  • Not on HSK 6%

Cumulative: HSK 1–4 covers 92% of the words, HSK 1–6 covers 94%, HSK 1–9 covers 94%.

Words to learn first

Pick a level to see the words a learner there needs to understand 95% of this video’s words.

Starting from zero (Beginner), learn 131 words to reach 95% of this video’s words.

The 20 most-used of these 131 words.

WordPinyinMeaning (CC-CEDICT)In videoLevel
我wǒI; me; my70Lv 1
说shuōto persuade; to speak; to talk; to say; to explain; to comment; to scold; to tell off; (bound form) theory; doctrine; variant of 說|说[shuo1]43Lv 1
了le(completed action marker); (modal particle indicating change of state, situation now); (modal particle intensifying preceding clause); to finish; (used with 得[de2] or 不[bu4] after a verb to express (im)possibility, as in 忘不了[wang4 bu5 liao3] "cannot forget"); (literary) (usually followed by a negative such as 無|无[wu2] or 不[bu4]) completely (not); entirely (not); (not) in the least; (of eyes) bright; clear-sighted; to understand clearly; to understand clearly (variant of 瞭|了[liao3]); unofficial variant of 瞭[liao4]31Lv 1
的deof; ~'s (possessive particle); (used after an attribute when it modifies a noun); (used at the end of a declarative sentence for emphasis); (used after a noun, verb or adjective to form a nominal expression, as in 皮革的[pi2 ge2 de5] "one made of leather" or 跑堂兒的|跑堂儿的[pao3 tang2 r5 de5] "a waiter (literally, one who runs back and forth in a restaurant)" or 新的[xin1 de5] "new one"); also pr. [di4] or [di5] in poetry and songs; really and truly; a taxi; a cab (abbr. for 的士[di1 shi4]); (bound form) bull's-eye; target26Lv 1
对不起duì bù qǐI'm sorry; excuse me; I beg your pardon; to let (sb) down; to disappoint22Lv 3
谢谢xiè xièto thank; thanks; thank you20Lv 1
他tā(third-person singular) (since the early 20th century, usu. male) he; him; his; (bound form) other; another; some other (as in 他日[ta1 ri4] and 他人[ta1 ren2])18Lv 1
你nǐyou (informal, as opposed to courteous 您[nin2]); you (Note: In Taiwan, 妳 is used to address females, but in mainland China, it is not commonly used. Instead, 你 is used to address both males and females.)17Lv 1
是shìto be (followed by substantives only); correct; right; true; (respectful acknowledgement of a command) very well; (adverb for emphatic assertion); variant of 是[shi4]11Lv 1
很hěnvery; quite; (also, often used before an adjective without intensifying its meaning, i.e. as a meaningless syntactic element)10Lv 1

Is this video right for my Chinese?

An 8-minute video from Xiaogua Chinese with 6 minutes of speech at 145 syllables per minute. It's 637 words long, using 162 different words. Difficulty: Intermediate, Level 39 — it suits Intermediate learners: knowing the common words through Level 39 covers about 95% of its words, roughly 1 unfamiliar word in 20. Words to learn first include 我, 说, 了.