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HSK 4 Chinese Reading Practice

Stories and articles where at least 9 in 10 words are HSK 4 or below.

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Every reading sits at the level where most of its words are taught

HSK 167 readings HSK 232 readings HSK 328 readings HSK 435 readings HSK 519 readings HSK 620 readings

Series at HSK 4

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Story series · 2 chapters · 2 min audio each拿错的伞The wrong umbrellaTwo black umbrellas. One small mistake. A rainy evening that does not go to plan.Chapter 1Chapter 2Starts with chapter 1

Story series · 10 chapters · 2 min audio each夜班The night shiftA student who can’t sleep takes the night shift at a corner shop called Always Here. Every night at three, while he unloads the van, someone leaves a note at the till and gives him marks. Nobody is ever there.Chapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Chapter 7Chapter 8Chapter 9Chapter 10Starts with chapter 1

All readings at HSK 4

Page 1 of 3 · 1–12 of 35

Story series · Chapter 1 of 2 · 2 min audio把手上的蓝线The blue threadTwo black umbrellas. One small mistake. A rainy evening that does not go to plan.HSK 4

Story · 3 min audio牛郎织女The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl: the story behind QixiA cowherd with nothing but an old ox. A weaver girl from heaven. A river of stars between them, and one night a year to cross it.HSK 4

Article · 2 min audio双十一是怎么来的？Where did Singles Day come from?Four 1s in a row. A joke among single students in Nanjing that grew into China’s biggest shopping festival.HSK 4

Story · 1 min audio最安静的地方The Quietest PlaceWith an online job interview about to begin and drills on every side, Chen Yi finds one quiet place. Unfortunately, it keeps moving.HSK 4

Story · 2 min audio我的房间My RoomHer mother sends a photograph of her childhood bedroom. The bed is gone. Going home suddenly means finding out where she fits now.HSK 4

Story series · Chapter 1 of 10 · 2 min audio欢迎光临The first night shiftA student who can’t sleep takes the night shift at a corner shop called Always Here. Every night at three, while he unloads the van, someone leaves a note at the till and gives him marks. Nobody is ever there.HSK 4

Article · 2 min audio孔子是谁？Who was Confucius?A stranger said Confucius looked like a stray dog. Confucius laughed and said: that's exactly right.HSK 4

Article · 2 min audio郑和是谁？Who was Zheng He? China's admiral of the treasure shipsSix hundred years ago a giraffe sailed into China, and the court thought it was a creature from legend. The man whose fleet carried it began life as a captured boy.HSK 4

Article · 2 min audio豆腐是谁发明的？Who invented tofu? The legend of Liu AnA prince tried to make a medicine to live forever. He failed, the story goes, but what came out of his pot is on dinner tables two thousand years later.HSK 4

Article · 2 min audio“躺平”是什么意思？What does 躺平 (lying flat) mean?In 2021 a young man wrote that he lived on 200 yuan a month and had stopped trying. Within weeks, all of China was talking about lying flat.HSK 4

Story · 2 min audio女娲补天Nüwa mends the skyA lonely goddess makes the first people out of mud. Then a furious god breaks the pillar that holds up the sky.HSK 4

Story · 2 min audio盘古开天Pangu separates the sky and the earthA giant sleeps inside an egg for eighteen thousand years. When he wakes up, he has to hold the sky up himself.HSK 4