HSK 2.0 → 3.0 Level Checker and Anki Re-tagger

Why bother? The two lists disagree more than the level names suggest. Of the 4,991 words in HSK 2.0, 2,461 have a different level in HSK 3.0 and 180 are not listed at all. A deck tagged “HSK 4” under the old system is now a mix of Level 1 to Level 7-9 words. The full breakdown is in our HSK 3.0 vs 2.0 guide, and each level has its own page, for example HSK 4: 2.0 vs 3.0 and HSK 6: 2.0 vs 3.0.

How to read the results

Every word lands in one of six groups. Click a group’s box to filter the table.

• Now earlier: HSK 3.0 puts it at a lower level. 饺子 (jiǎozi, dumpling) was HSK 2.0 Level 4 and is now Level 1.
• Now later: it moved up. 小姐 (xiǎojie, miss) went from Level 1 to Level 5, while 女士 (nǚshì, lady) came down from Level 5 to Level 1.
• Same level: unchanged. 2,350 words are in this group overall.
• New in HSK 3.0: HSK 2.0 never listed it, for example 你好 (nǐ hǎo), now Level 1.
• Not in HSK 3.0: HSK 2.0 listed it and HSK 3.0 doesn’t. Often the word survives in another form, so the checker shows the HSK 3.0 words it is made of or that build on it: 唱歌 (chàng gē, to sing) is gone, but 唱 and 歌 are both Level 1, and 冬 (dōng, winter) gave way to 冬天.
• In neither list: not an HSK word in either version, or not a single word (a sentence, a name). Sentences are split into the listed words they contain, as a hint.

The grid under the boxes counts your words by old level (rows) and new level (columns). The diagonal is unchanged; cells left of it moved earlier, cells right of it moved later. “7-9” is one band: HSK 3.0 tests Levels 7, 8 and 9 in a single exam with one shared word list.

Traditional characters are matched to their simplified form (麵條 finds 面条). Where the two syllabuses spell a word differently, the checker treats it as one word and says so: HSK 2.0’s 面条 is listed as 面条儿 in HSK 3.0, and 桔子 as 橘子. Meanings come from CC-CEDICT; for words with several readings, such as 了 (le / liǎo), both are shown, because the HSK lists name words, not readings.

Re-tag an Anki deck, step by step

1. In Anki on your computer, make a backup, then choose File → Export. Pick Notes in Plain Text (.txt) and the deck, and tick Include tags and Include unique identifier.
2. Choose the Upload Anki or CSV export tab above and pick the file. The checker uses the column with the most HSK words. If your first field is a sentence, switch Word column to the one that holds the word.
3. Click Download re-tagged file. Each note keeps its existing tags and gains one tag such as HSK3::4 or HSK3::7-9. Running it twice replaces the old HSK3:: tag instead of adding a second one. Leave Add columns off for this; it is meant for spreadsheets.
4. In Anki, choose File → Import and pick the new file. Check that the note type matches and the tags column is mapped to Tags, and keep the duplicate setting on updating existing notes. Because the file carries each note’s unique identifier, Anki updates the notes in place and keeps their review history (see the Anki manual on text imports).
5. In the browser, search tag:HSK3::1 or tag:HSK3::7-9. The :: makes a tag tree, so all levels sit under one HSK3 branch. A filtered deck on tag:HSK3::1 OR tag:HSK3::2 is a quick way to catch up on words that moved earlier.

A plain CSV or a word list from a spreadsheet works too. The checker adds a tags column, and for pasted words the CSV download has pinyin, meaning, both levels and the tag for each word.

Limits worth knowing

• It checks words, not running text. Paste a list. A pasted sentence is not segmented into a reading-level score.
• Levels are list metadata, not difficulty. The HSK lists assign each written word one level. They don’t say which meaning of a word is meant at that level.
• Our counts differ slightly from the syllabus totals. The syllabus describes Level 7-9 as 11,000 words cumulatively; our table has 10,889 distinct written words, counting each written word once. The methodology explains the 72 Level 7-9 words we restored and the variant spellings we merged.
• This isn’t an official tool. Levels follow the HSK syllabus published by Chinese Testing International in November 2025. Check chinesetest.cn for exam rules and dates.

Data and licences

HSK 3.0 levels: official HSK syllabus (Chinese Testing International, chinesetest.cn, published November 2025), used as level metadata; 72 Level 7-9 entries from drkameleon/complete-hsk-vocabulary (MIT). HSK 2.0 levels: the same project (MIT License, © 2026 Yanis Zafirópulos). Pinyin and meanings: CC-CEDICT by MDBG, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Files you download with pinyin or meanings carry that licence notice in their first lines and are shared under the same licence. The page records an anonymous count of how many words were checked, never the words.