Many of us are likely familiar with word or character frequency lists that are used to prioritize vocabulary learning. I was always curious about what a simplification frequency table would look like, but was never able to find one. I’ve long since learned all the patterns myself by inputting them into Pleco, but a recent discussion with another Chinese learner got me thinking and inspired me to compile such a list.
And so, here is a link to the project Git repo with source code, CSV data, and methodology:
Simplification Patterns Frequency Analyzer
Feedback and bug reports are welcome.
If you just want to check out the CSV data, you can get that here:
Simplification Patterns Frequency Table (CSV)
So, how many patterns do you need to learn to attain proficiency in the alternate script? The distribution breaks down something like this:
Looking at the numbers it would seem that getting to 50-60% coverage is really pretty trivial.
And so, here is a link to the project Git repo with source code, CSV data, and methodology:
Simplification Patterns Frequency Analyzer
Feedback and bug reports are welcome.
If you just want to check out the CSV data, you can get that here:
Simplification Patterns Frequency Table (CSV)
So, how many patterns do you need to learn to attain proficiency in the alternate script? The distribution breaks down something like this:
| Top n patterns | % Coverage |
| 12 | 30% |
| 32 | 50% |
| 51 | 60% |
| 77 | 70% |
| 119 | 80% |
| 189 | 90% |
| 247 | 95% |
| 496 | 100% |
Looking at the numbers it would seem that getting to 50-60% coverage is really pretty trivial.