There are several ten thousands of Chinese characters, but the vast majority are rarely, if ever, used. If you know say 3000, you'll do quite well reading most things.
(In Japanese, the topic of the original article, the situation is somewhat better, as mostly only a fairly well defined subset of about 2000 characters is used, next to (two) syllabaries and the Latin alphabet).
Knowing only 250 or even 1000 characters is quite unsatisfying, though. When you read a newspaper, it'll read like this: "At the meeting yesterday, president <someone> said that it is of great importance to <something> the <something>, otherwise surely the <something> will <something> down. <someone> suggested a possible solution, though, by bringing the whole country together to <something> for the future and implement a better <something>."
Sure, you understand 90%, but that's not really cutting it.
(In Japanese, the topic of the original article, the situation is somewhat better, as mostly only a fairly well defined subset of about 2000 characters is used, next to (two) syllabaries and the Latin alphabet).
Knowing only 250 or even 1000 characters is quite unsatisfying, though. When you read a newspaper, it'll read like this: "At the meeting yesterday, president <someone> said that it is of great importance to <something> the <something>, otherwise surely the <something> will <something> down. <someone> suggested a possible solution, though, by bringing the whole country together to <something> for the future and implement a better <something>."
Sure, you understand 90%, but that's not really cutting it.