TOCFL wordlists

This repository contains parsed and cleaned up vocabulary wordlists for TOCFL and related tests in .csv format. Current as well as some historical versions.

TOCFL (Test of Chinese as a Foreign Language): standardized Mandarin language proficiency test for non-native speakers, a taiwanese equivalent of Mainland's HSK.

CCCC (Children's Chinese Competency Certification): related test aimed at non-native children speakers aged 7-12.

TBCL (Taiwan Benchmarks for the Chinese Language): reference wordlist and grammar points list for constructing language tests, but not a test per se.

Wordlists

tocfl-202307.csv: current 2022/2023 TOCFL wordlist (html, with definitions)

• 7517 terms (7849 with variants, 7480 unique)
• 7 levels (in ID column together with term index):
  • L0-1nnn = Novice 1 (準備級一級), pre-A1
  • L0-2nnn = Novice 2 (準備級二級), pre-A1
  • L1-nnnn = Beginner (入門級), CEFR A1
  • L2-nnnn = Basic (基礎級), CEFR A2
  • L3-nnnn = Intermediate (進階級), CEFR B1
  • L4-nnnn = Advanced (高階級), CEFR B2
  • L5-nnnn = Fluent (流利級), CEFR C1-C2
• Contains part-of-speech tags for all terms, but no definitions
• Source: 8000zhuyin_202307.zip / 8000zhuyin_202204.zip

tocfl-20180419.csv: 2018 TOCFL wordlist version (html)

• 7945 terms (8106 with variants, 7399 unique), 7 levels
• Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20200227052851/http://www.sc-top.org.tw/download/8000zhuyin.zip

tocfl-20160215.csv ... tocfl-20170324.csv: older versions of TOCFL wordlists

top-20100915.csv, top-20111208.csv: 2010/2011 wordlist versions (html)

• TOCFL test back then was simply called SC-TOP
• 4-5 levels (2010 file has a single level for CEFR A1-A2, L2 here)
• Terse English definitions for all terms -- useful for looking up the main intended sense or deciphering some more obscure entries on newer lists e.g.
  • 只,zhǐ,M,"Individual measure word for box, watch or ring."
  • 不等,bùděng,Post,vary in number - postposition, were changed to N in bulk on newer lists.
• Different part-of-speech tags, following PAVC textbooks.
• Source: 800+800020100915.xls, list20111208.xls

cccc.csv: CCCC 2022 wordlist (html)

• 1197 terms (1344 with variants, 1312 unique)
• 3 levels (reference):
  • L1-nnn = 萌芽級, pre-A1
  • L2-nnn = 成長級, CEFR A1
  • L3-nnn = 茁壯級, CEFR A2
• Part-of-speech and basic English definitions for all terms.
• Source: https://tocfl.edu.tw/assets/files/vocabulary/CCCC_Vocabulary_2022.xls

tbcl.csv: TBCL wordlist (html, with CE-CCDICT definitions)

• 14425 terms (14868 with variants, 14731 unique)
• 7 levels
• Definitions, part-of-speech and examples for ~1500 beginner level (L1-L3) words.
• Source: https://coct.naer.edu.tw/download/tech_report/

Other files

• tocfl.ipynb, tbcl.ipynb: parser scripts
• tbcl-affix.csv: TBCL affix table (suffixes and prefixes)
• tbcl-chars.csv: TBCL character table by level (slightly different from characters used in the wordlist)
• tbcl-grammar.csv: TBCL grammar points table
• tocfl-cedict.csv, tbcl-cedict.csv: wordlists merged with CC-CEDICT definitions
• errata.csv: corrections applied to pinyin in original lists to fix various errors
• expanded/*.csv: wordlists with term variants expanded, each variant on a separate line
• pleco/*.txt: wordlists for import to Pleco as flashcards or a user dictionary -- useful to get level tags for terms in Pleco

Format

Columns in .csv files:

• ID: term's level + index (row number in source excel file)
• Traditional: term in traditional characters
  • May contain ()/, to indicate variants.
  • See Variants field or expanded/*.csv files to get clean a hanzi.
• Simplified: term converted to simplified characters
• Pinyin: pinyin with diacritics, cleaned up and normalized. Tone changes are not indicated.
• POS: part of speech, /-separated.
  • See description on TOCFL website for details.
  • Follows part of speech in dangdai textbooks / TengPOS
  • TOP wordlists follow older PAVC textbooks
• Meaning (CCCC/TOP/TBCL wordlists): English definition
• WFreq, SFreq (TBCL): writing and speech frequency (in Sinica corpus?)
• MOE (TBCL): reference IDs for looking up terms on https://dict.concised.moe.edu.tw/dictView.jsp?ID=
• Variants: for entries where TOCFL gives multiple variants of a term, an expanded disambiguated list as a JSON list of objects with alternatives column values.

Links

• Browsable/linkable HTML versions: https://ivankra.github.io/tocfl/.
• TOCFL: https://tocfl.edu.tw/
• TBCL: https://coct.naer.edu.tw/TBCL/
• SC-TOP/TOCFL archive: https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.sc-top.org.tw/download/*