Discussion How many words are usually in a chinese web novel chapter when translated to english?

Discussion in 'Novel General' started by zen2451, Jun 6, 2018.

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  1. zen2451

    zen2451 Well-Known Member

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    So I was thinking it was like 2,000 words or so but I'm not sure exactly. Again, I'm talking about english words after being translated! thanks.
     
    zen2451, Jun 6, 2018
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  2. DocB

    DocB "I see you, little mouse! Run along"

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    depends but the usual model is 1500 to 2000 chinese character translated to 2000 to 3000 english words, but some chapter would be smaller 1000-1500 words or larger 4000 to 6000 words
     
    DocB, Jun 6, 2018
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  3. pocketbear

    pocketbear !!!!!!!

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    It depends on the novel, stories typically catering to women have shorter chapters to be read on breaks or commuting, whereas the xianxia types can end up being very long chapters in any language.
     
    pocketbear, Jun 6, 2018
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  4. Wujigege

    Wujigege *Christian*SIMP*Comedian

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    If a novel has 4k Chinese characters
    You get about 2k English words
     
    Wujigege, Jun 6, 2018
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  5. elengee

    elengee Daoist Ninefaps

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    Trillions of words but if you filter out the redundancy it's about a few hundred. :blobwoah:
     
    elengee, Jun 6, 2018
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  6. AtratusImperator

    AtratusImperator Well-Known Member

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    Varies from story to story and chapter to chapter but most CN stories are 1500-4500 words per chapter in english. If you want to check a particular chapter or story you're reading there is https://wordcounter.net which you can easily paste the contents of a chapter into and then it'll tell you exactly how many words.
     
    AtratusImperator, Jun 6, 2018
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  7. TamaSaga

    TamaSaga Well-Known Member

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    This is just a sidenote since it doesn't answer the OP's question:
    Keep in mind that people are specifying characters to words.

    If it was characters to characters, you would get a number that is about 5 times more since the average number of letters in a word is generally stated to be 5.
    So 2000 Chinese Characters -> 2000 English Words -> 10000 English Letters.
     
    TamaSaga, Jun 6, 2018
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  8. GodBrandy

    GodBrandy ❮Evil Shitposter❯

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    3000 Chinese characters are about 1900-2000 English words.
    If it's 2000 Chinese characters it's 1300-1400 English words, while 4000 Chinese characters are around 2500-2600 English words.
     
    GodBrandy, Jun 6, 2018
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