* Different Types of "Words": Chinese doesn't use spaces between words like English. "Words" can be single characters (汉字, hànzì), combinations of characters (词语, cíyǔ), or even phrases that act as a single unit (成语, chéngyǔ). Defining what counts as a "word" gets tricky.
* Constant Evolution: The Chinese language is constantly evolving. New words are created, old words gain new meanings, and some words become obsolete.
However, we can give you some general estimates:
* Characters: There are thousands of Chinese characters, but only a few thousand are commonly used. The Simplified Chinese character set used in mainland China contains about 7,000 characters, while Traditional Chinese used in Taiwan and Hong Kong has 13,000+ characters.
* Vocabulary: A person with a high level of Chinese proficiency might know tens of thousands of words. There are dictionaries with hundreds of thousands of entries, but many of these are archaic or highly specialized terms.
In short, there's no single answer to how many words are in Chinese. It depends on how you define a "word" and what level of vocabulary you're considering.