What are the most essential Chinese words at C1 level I should master

The most essential Chinese words at the C1 level are typically advanced vocabulary that includes complex, formal, and often domain-specific terms, idiomatic expressions, and less frequent but important multi-character words. Mastery at the C1 level means going beyond everyday basic and intermediate vocabulary to include:

• Words with complex grammatical forms and higher frequency in advanced texts or speech contexts
• Formal and literary vocabulary as distinct from colloquial or conversational terms
• Specialized terminology related to academic, professional, or cultural topics
• Idiomatic expressions and “chengyu” (four-character idioms), which are often used figuratively
• Words that show nuance or subtle differences in meaning

There is no single fixed list publicly available that comprehensively enumerates all essential C1 words, but vocabulary learning at this stage typically includes words from advanced language proficiency standards or large datasets built from native texts, dictionaries, and learner corpora.

Among useful resources and approaches for C1 vocabulary:

• The Chinese Proficiency Standards for International Chinese Language Education (HSK level 6 and beyond) outline vocabulary requirements including word frequency, formation, and usage complexity. ¹⁶
• Vocabulary often overlaps with those used in formal spoken or written language such as monologues, podcasts, and academic lectures. ⁸
• Dictionaries, learner corpora, and language tests like LexCHI offer word samples targeting high proficiency learners. ¹⁷
• Learning idiomatic and figurative language like “chengyu” is important at this level. ¹⁸

In sum, essential C1 words encompass a broad range of complex vocabulary, including formal language, idioms, and domain-specific terms. To master these, focusing on extensive reading, listening to advanced Chinese media, and using graded vocabulary lists from official proficiency exams is recommended.

If you want, I can also help outline some example C1-level words or suggest specific vocabulary resources tailored to this proficiency level.

References

• A large-scale database of Chinese characters and words collected from elementary school textbooks.

• Words Difficult to Read: Criteria, Typology, Corpus Statistics (based on the Russian speech of native Chinese speakers)

• A comparison of approaches to affective rating of Chinese words on valence-arousal space

• ABOUT THE ORDER OF WORDS IN A SENTENCE IN RUSSIAN LANGUAGE THROUGH THE PRISM OF THE CHINESE LANGUAGE

• A Mixed Semantic Features Model for Chinese NER with Characters and Words

• Neural tuning for Chinese characters in adult Chinese L2 learners: evidence from an ERP study

• A core group of Russian words with feminine meanings: dictionaries vs living speech of Russians vs perception of Chinese native speakers

• Investigating Linguistic Variation in Chinese Podcasts: A Quantitative Stylistic Perspective

• The Essential Importance of Vocabulary Instruction in Language Proficiency: An Examination of Methods and Strategies Across Educational Approaches in China

• Domain-Aware Word Segmentation for Chinese Language: A Document-Level Context-Aware Model

• CLUECorpus2020: A Large-scale Chinese Corpus for Pre-training Language Model

• Shuo Wen Jie Zi: Rethinking Dictionaries and Glyphs for Chinese Language Pre-training

• Shuo Wen Jie Zi: Rethinking Dictionaries and Glyphs for Chinese Language Pre-training

• LSICC: A Large Scale Informal Chinese Corpus

• A Machine Learning Classification Algorithm for Vocabulary Grading in Chinese Language Teaching

• Research on Handwritten Chinese Characters in Chinese Proficiency Grading Standards for International Chinese Language Education

• LexCHI: A quick lexical test for estimating language proficiency in Chinese

• Chengyu Cloze Test