OVER 9000!!!!!
…is not the answer to dis question🙅🏻♀️
F O O T N O T E S:
1 Actual estimates are closer to 50,000 characters. In reality, though, the vast majority of these characters have fallen out of use. A college educated Chinese person will know an average of 8000 characters, but a grasp of 2-3000 characters will let you read serious newspapers (like…Economist level serious). Source BBC (link).
2 Note that these percentages assume conversational proficiency in spoken Chinese (Mandarin, Cantonese, etc).
3 A solid grasp of about 100 characters will allow you text (with the aid of emojis) in your family WeChat/whatsapp! Source: author’s own Xperience🙃
5. These percentages were adapted from @yoyochinese