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國中 vs 初中

junior high school · Preferred written form

台灣 · Taiwan
國中 ㄍㄨㄛˊ ㄓㄨㄥ · guó zhōng TOCFL L4 →
vs
大陆 · Mainland
初中 chū zhōng · ㄔㄨ ㄓㄨㄥ HSK 3 →

What differs, and by how much

Preferred written form The two preferred forms differ by a single character. In Taiwan the standard term is 國中; on the Mainland it is 初中 - both point at “junior high school”.

Taiwan’s Ministry of Education dictionaries record 國中、初中 for this concept. The Mainland standard is among them - the difference is which form each side makes the default.

國中 is L4 vocabulary on the TOCFL 华语八千词 list; 初中 is HSK 3 vocabulary on the HSK 3.0 list.

Pair source: LinZi’s curated MOE-vs-HSK comparison table.

Side by side

Taiwan · 台灣Mainland · 大陆
Written form 國中 初中
Reading ㄍㄨㄛˊ ㄓㄨㄥ guó zhōng chū zhōng ㄔㄨ ㄓㄨㄥ
Senses junior high school (Tw); abbr. for 國民中學|国民中学 (國民中學|国民中学 · junior high school (Tw)) junior high school (abbr. for 初級中學|初级中学)
Syllabus TOCFL L4 HSK 3
MOE records 國中 · 初中
Dictionary entry → entry →
Audio

In context

“初中” in a sentence
我不是个初中生。
I'm not a junior high school student.
“国中” in a sentence
我是个国中生。
I'm a junior high school student.

Keep exploring

Taiwan vs Mainland explorer (search all 953 pairs, random pair, MOE reading table) · every pair, A–Z · MOE standard characters · learning Mandarin for Taiwan · dictionary

Learn the Taiwan track - or the Mainland one

LinZi drills both syllabi: TOCFL with Traditional characters, zhuyin and zh-TW audio on one track; HSK with Simplified and zh-CN on the other. Every card shows both scripts.

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