Easy Chinese story: I got a letter from the past | Intermediate Chinese | Comprehensible input

YouTube · Lazy Chinese · Learner content · 2025/12/23
2025/12/23
Speech duration
8min 14s
Unique characters · 159 once
368
Word count
1,132
Average sentence length
8.4
Length
11:02
Unique words · 203 once
361
Syllables per minute
190
Script
Simplified 简
Sentences
187
Difficulty
Intermediatedifficulty

Difficulty is estimated from vocabulary: knowing common words through Level 29 covers about 95% of the words in this content — roughly 1 unfamiliar word in 20, the coverage research links to comfortable listening. Level 29 sits in the Intermediate range.

How difficulty works
Intermediate · 29

Difficulty is estimated from vocabulary: knowing common words through Level 29 covers about 95% of the words in this content — roughly 1 unfamiliar word in 20, the coverage research links to comfortable listening. Level 29 sits in the Intermediate range.

TAGSLearner contentVlogLanguage lesson

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 62%
  • HSK 2 8%
  • HSK 3 11%
  • HSK 4 7%
  • HSK 5 2%
  • HSK 6 1%
  • HSK 7–9 0%
  • Not on HSK 8%

Cumulative: HSK 1–4 covers 88% of the words, HSK 1–6 covers 91%, HSK 1–9 covers 92%.

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 302 words to reach 95% of this video’s words.

The 20 most-used of these 302 words.

WordPinyinMeaning (CC-CEDICT)In videoLevel
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.)87Lv 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; target87Lv 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]43Lv 1
很hěnvery; quite; (also, often used before an adjective without intensifying its meaning, i.e. as a meaningless syntactic element)38Lv 1
我wǒI; me; my25Lv 1
多duōmany; much; more; a lot of; too many; in excess; (after a numeral) ... odd; how (to what extent) (Taiwan pr. [duo2]); (bound form) multi-; poly-21Lv 2
不bùno; not so; (bound form) not; un-20Lv 1
去qùto go; to go to (a place); (of a time etc) last; just passed; to send; to remove; to get rid of; to reduce; to be apart from in space or time; to die (euphemism); to play (a part); (when used either before or after a verb) to go in order to do sth; (after a verb of motion indicates movement away from the speaker); (used after certain verbs to indicate detachment or separation)17Lv 1
人rénperson; people; CL:個|个[ge4],位[wei4]15Lv 1
想xiǎngto think (about); to think of; to devise; to think (that); to believe (that); to desire; to want (to); to miss (feel wistful about the absence of)14Lv 1

Is this video right for my Chinese?

An 11-minute video from Lazy Chinese with 8 minutes of speech at 190 syllables per minute. It's 1,132 words long, using 361 different words. Difficulty: Intermediate, Level 29 — it suits Intermediate learners: knowing the common words through Level 29 covers about 95% of its words, roughly 1 unfamiliar word in 20. Words to learn first include 你, 的, 了.