I did it just for fun, but the result shocked me!
I decided to take the Chinese Gospel of Matthew and highlight in yellow those characters belonging to my list of 1000 most frequently used Chinese characters.
I well knew that only 6 characters make 10% of the usage of Chinese language, 152 characters make up 50% and that 1000 characters make up 89%.
But when I saw how yellow was the result, I couldn't believe my eyes - and still I don't!
Please take a look at the picture I've uploaded to the page
www.wearyourchinesename.com/chinese-characters.htmland see if you don't feel the same.
Now I'm absolutely sure: if you want to learn to read and write in Chinese, you must give priority to those 1000 characters!