🇨🇳 HSK 1
HSK 1 reading practice: easy Chinese stories
At HSK 1 you know about 150 words and a handful of characters, which feels like nowhere near enough to read anything. In fact it is enough to start, provided the text is written for you: short sentences like 这是一座山 (This is a mountain) built from the words you are learning, repeated often enough that you start recognising characters without pinyin.
ReadNative's Journey to the West opens at exactly this level, with the birth of the Stone Monkey, and grows slowly through HSK 2 to HSK 3. The Twelve Zodiac Animals (HSK 1–2) is a second option for when you want a different story. Journey to the West is free: you can read its first chapters — in fact all 50 — in your browser, tapping any word for pinyin and an English meaning, or any sentence for a translation. All of ReadNative's Chinese books have read-along audio.
HSK 1 covers about 150 words under the HSK 2.0 standard — pronouns, numbers, time words, basic verbs like 是, 有, 去 and 喜欢, and simple question patterns with 吗 and 什么.
HSK 1 stories you can read now
Books that cover HSK 1
HSK 2 reading · HSK 3 reading · HSK 4 reading · HSK 5 reading · Most common Chinese words · Best Chinese graded readers
Questions
Can I really read stories at HSK 1?
Yes, if they are graded. The first chapters of Journey to the West use very short sentences and the most basic vocabulary, and you can tap any word you have not met yet.
Should I read with pinyin?
Use pinyin as a backup, not a crutch. In ReadNative it appears only when you tap a word, which nudges you to read the characters first.
Does this follow HSK 2.0 or HSK 3.0?
The word counts here follow the HSK 2.0 standard (HSK 1–6), which most textbooks and graded readers still use. HSK 3.0, introduced in 2021, has nine bands and larger word lists, so treat levels as approximate.