Grit, viz. a combination of perseverance and passion for long-term goals, is a psychological variable that has recently attracted scholarly attention. Research along this psychological line is significant because it complements the rich on-going research on cognitive variables. The seminal research by Plonsky (2018) and colleagues has validated an instrument to measure what they call ‘L2 grit’ in the Iranian EFL context. As a partial replication of the above research in the Chinese context, the present study confirmed the two-fold structure of L2 grit identified in the seminal research, and found that the selected socio-biographical variables (e.g. multilingualism, L2 joy, age, and gender) were linked to L2 grit to varying degrees. Additionally, this study proposes providing a range of effect sizes for each predictor in hierarchical regression as a more refined data analysis approach. Suggestions (e.g. considering a wider multilingual population) are made for future research. •This study was the first (partial) replication of the very first L2 grit study.•It confirmed the factorial structure of the L2 grit scale in the Chinese context.•The influence of seven sociobiographical variables on L2 grit was examined.•Language competence, L2 joy, and age statistically significantly predicted L2 grit.•A more refined data analysis method based on hierarchical regression was proposed.