This book is intended for Western students of the Chinese language who wish to take the Chinese language proficiency exam (Hànyu Shuipíng Kaoshì), HSK) either for academic reasons when planning to enroll for studies at a university in Mainland China or for any other professional or personal reasons. This book contains lists of vocabulary and Chinese characters that students are required to know for the six different levels of the HSK exam. It is intended as a reference guide to essential vocabulary and Chinese characters as well as to the grammar aspects that will be requested within the exam in one of the various ways of the communicative tasks assigned to the candidate. This book should be used in conjunction with the official monolingual textbooks available for each level of the HSK exam as a guide of bilingual reference throughout the preparation process for the exam at each proficiency level.

Text Sample: Preface: The […] (HSK) Chinese Language Proficiency Test” is a test that, regarding ist status, can be compared to the TOEFL and similar English language proficiency exams. It is overseen by the Chinese Ministry of Education and by the State Commission for the HSK […] exam in the People’s Republic of China. This test was originally introduced in 1990 in Peking with another, earlier format than the current one, the latter of which was launched in 2010 and revised in 2012. It is the latter that is also known as the New HSK” (? HSK). The older pre-2010 HSK format was divided into the four levels of Basic, Elementary/Intermediate, and Advanced the current HSK test format from 2010 has the three following levels, sub-divided into two sub-levels each: Beginner: Levels 1 and 2. Intermediate: Levels 3 and 4. Advanced: Levels 5 and 6. The philosophy behind this new format was a test that would cover comprehensive language and communication ability” and would move towards a more communicative approach as the current standard in the Western foreign language teaching industry with ist impacts on textbooks and foreign language proficiency exam formats. For the Hanban, the Common European Language Proficiency Framework (CEF) served as a strong point of orientation in this, and in 2010 it was stated that these six levels of the HSK exam corresponded exactly to the levels A1 - A2 (Beginners/Elementary), B1 - B2 (Intermediate) and C1 - C2 (Advanced) of the CEF. Criticism put forward by the German and French associations of Chinese language teachers, however, lead to questioning of this statement for the HSK Level 6, the French association of Chinese language teachers stated that it corresponded roughly to a level between B2 and C1 of the CEF the estimate of the German association of Chinese language teachers was even lower by being estimated to be roughly equivalent to the B2 level of the CEF. In 2012, the new HSK test format from 2010 underwent some revision, and the claim of exact equivalence of the six HSK exam levels to the 6 levels of the CEF disappeared in the official Hanban publications. However, there is no doubt that the Hanban commission added some elements of the communicative language teaching approach to the new HSK exam format by putting a stronger focus on the four communicative language skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing while other elements - e.g., teaching grammar points in progression and not completely at a time – still seem to be somewhat missing and unreflected in the relevant textbooks for these exams. Future developments will show whether there will be a stronger and more consequent move into the direction of communicative-based learning and teaching of Chinese as a Foreign Language (ChFL). More conservative approaches in language teaching and learning prior to the general implementation of the communicative approach in the foreign language teaching industry clearly had much less focussed on communicative language ability with ist four practical communicative language skills of speaking, listening, writing and reading. At that time, the focus was on the acquisition of the linguistic raw material” of a foreign language - ist sound and writing systems, ist vocabulary and ist grammatical structure system instead. This did not necessarily lead to enabling the learner to communicate successfully in speaking, listening, writing and reading. However, speaking, listening, writing and reading as acts in successful communication cannot take place and happen without a certain ability to a master the linguistic raw materials” just mentioned. It is the essential linguistic raw materials” of the Chinese language required for the six levels of the HSK exam that this book is about. It lists all the Chinese vocabulary, the Chinese characters and most of the grammar points required for each of the six levels of the HSK exam. It will give you an overview on what to practice, know and master for each of the six levels of the HSK exam. These linguistic raw material pieces need to be embedded in the four practical communicative language skills in a senseful and thoughtful manner. There is no mastery of the four language skills at any foreign language proficiency level without the mastery of these linguistic raw materials” of a foreign language. Likewise, a knowledge or even mastery of these linguistic raw materials” at any foreign language ability level would be studied in vain if the foreign language student was not trained to use them in communication efficiently and successfully. In brief, mastery of the linguistic raw material” and the ability to successfully using them in communication go together, and both aspects determine each other and cannot be separated from one another. This book is intended as a first guide to the linguistic raw materials” that the eader will need when preparing for and taking an HSK exam at any of the six levels. This book, however, can in no way and under any circumstances be a substitute for the other side of the coin - to practice using them in communication. For the latter aspect, there are many suitable textbooks and supplementary materials available for each of the six levels of the HSL exam while for the linguistic raw material” side a comprehensive guide for all the six levels of the HSK exam in a single volume seems to be lacking. It is for this reason that we have compiled the book it is our hope and wish that it will serve ist intended purpose and that it will be useful to all those Western learners of Chinese as a Foreign Language. August 2015. MUHAMMAD WOLFGANG G. A. SCHMIDT.

• Chinese Language Proficiency Exam

• HSK exam preparation

• Chinese Script

• Chinese grammar

Muhammad Schmidt was born in 1950. He graduated in Linguistics, Chinese and African Studies, Language Pedagogy and Comparative Religion/Theology, made his Ph.D. in Chinese Studies (Sinology) and post-doc degree (Habilitation) from universities in Germany, the USA and China. In Korea, South and East Africa and China he gave Linguistic and Chinese Language classes. At first he did this as a Lecturer, later as Associate and Full Professor. The author published numerous research works, textbooks and interactive digital language learning programmes for Swahili, Chinese and English. Schmidt retired in June 2015 from the active professional life in the academic world. In January 2015 his well-known annotated German translation of the oldest Chinese classic on acupuncture was re-published by Viademica Publishers in Berlin (4. ed., ISBN 978-3-939290-81-0).