[ZhangFei]

So I'm trying to pick up Chinese again.... and learning how to write/read it.

What's recommended, simplified chinese or traditional?

[death_blossom]

I would say traditional.

Simplified is easy to pick up when you start noticing the "differences" in certain characters. But I'll wait for a more Chinese literate person to chime in, as my written Chinese skills are very low.

[skyxx]

Always start with Traditional first. It's the best in my opinion. Learn the hardest first, you'll get simplified quite easily after you learn traditional.

[ZhangFei]

any mainlanders wanna chime in?

[slammer111]

Having learned written Chinese from scratch (I was 100% illiterate as a kid) in my teens, and having gone to China (where they use Simplified) and Taiwan (where they use Traditional).. LEARN TRADITIONAL.

I was lucky and got shoved into a Traditional school by my parents. It's not hard to read both types.

My friends who took Simplified are, in a nutshell, completely crippled whenever someone throws anything Traditional at them.

With the exception of a handful of characters, anyone who knows Traditional can read both. Not so simple for those who only know Simplified.

My understanding is also that people who can read/write traditional are seen as "higher class" as well, which may help if you're involved with business. Notice how Hong Kong and Taiwan and any expat hangouts use Traditional, while ONLY China uses Simplified. And yes, I've heard Honger/Twanger fobs say things like "Mainlanders are so backwards, they can't even read their own traditional script". ;)

The way I see it, Traditional vs Simplified is like British English vs Ebonics. :lol Or, in car terms, driving a stock Porsche vs a Honda with a mismatched body kit and NOS stickers.

[Drow]

is this a troll thread or wut

[asian_XL]

yes, traditional is more difficult to learn, so what?

it's about practicality. People who know traditional also knows how to read simplified, but
a lot of mainlanders cannot read/write traditional. I would say pick the easiest and most
people can read.

in fact, only a couple thousand chinese words are simplified, so it's not like it takes x2 as
much time to learn the other one.

[StylinRed]

simplified.... that's what china uses..... why would u learn traditional? some traditional words(that were changed) are impossible to write and there's no point since only Taiwan uses it and we all know they're going to get engulfed in the end and conform

[impactX]

Traditional, simplified is for the illiterates who can't handle traditional.

[Blinky]

My literacy is limited, but I'd recommend traditional. It's not that much harder to learn and it is very easy to recognize the common simplifications after a little while.

Incidentally, traditional is still used in HK and I don't really recall seeing simplified locally, either.

[liu13]

doesnt matter if Traditional or Simplified, you'll pick it up pretty fast

work on pronunciation, watch a few chinese movies, get a chinese dictionary, and try some lines out with chinese friends

trying to upgrade my low level mandarin too here

[KuSouL]

simplified characters don't make sense
there's a reason why traditional characters are the way they are and then some words were made simplified i guess people got lazy?

[jackmeister]

wasnt simplified chinese utilized in order to get more illiterate people (rural population) moderately educated in the shortest time possible?

but many characters that are simplified have already made its way into traditional characters. for example, 1-10 is the first one that comes to mind.

[StylinRed]

it wasn't just illiterate people it was people in general had an unsurprisingly hard time with the complex characters and so a move to simplification was made


lets not forget chinese characters started out as extremely, almost jokingly, simple and turned into something so complex even a learned person would have trouble with it so it was knocked down a peg

[Expresso]

simplified characters don't make sense
there's a reason why traditional characters are the way they are and then some words were made simplified i guess people got lazy?

Agreed, at least traditional the composition of each character makes sense. Traditional some hacked up garbage!

[asian_XL]

simplified characters don't make sense? do they need to make sense?

try to write 議...then write the simplified version of it --> 议
it saves you so much time if you actually write.

[lilaznviper]

i grew up learning traditional chinese plus i could read simplifed too

but now im limited to reading chinese cuz i am a lazy ass

[ilvtofu]

Don't stoop down to FOB status, learn traditional

[bbqsauce]

i learned simplified chinese when i grew up in china, but since i came to vancouver all the chinese i've been reading has been in traditional (mingpao, singtao, tv subtitles), im more familiar w/ traditional now, however i have some probs writing but zero probs typing.

depends on what u want to do with read/writing chinese, if ur gonna be spending a significant time on the mainland then learn simplified. if all u wanna do is read some newspapers or spending time in tw/hk go for traditional. doesnt matter which u learn really, u can guess meaning of the words most of the time just by context.

最後我們都得到了幸福
最后我们都得到了幸福

i just copy and pasted some simplified chinese from a frnds msn name, so u can see its not much diff.

[wasabisashimi]

cant traditional and simplifed chinese poeple live together happily?

[124Y]

simplified characters don't make sense
there's a reason why traditional characters are the way they are and then some words were made simplified i guess people got lazy?

+1

The characters started out as oracles. Each character has its own meaning

For example:

http://factsanddetails.com/media/2/20080223-evolution%20of%20chinese%20characters.jpg

You can see how the characters evolve from the oracles to what we use today. Simplified is easier to write, I agree. However, sometimes it really doesn't make sense.

The pronunciation for "face" is "Mian", which is the same pronunciation as "noodle". The traditional character for face is 面 and for noodle is 麵 In simplified Chinese, they both use the character for "face" to represent the two. The reason why "noodle" is written like that is because noodle is made of wheat flour. Hence, the character of wheat "麥" is part of the character of "noodle"

It's not that I'm hatin' on simplified Chinese. It's more convenient, I gotta admit, but it's just sometimes it doesn't make sense.

[Ikkaku]

I say traditional, because Hong Kong and Taiwan still uses it.

Although I learned some simplified, because that's what the prof taught at Langara :( wish she taught traditional instead, though.

[wouwou]

Simplified if you just want to be able to use Chinese.

Traditional if you REALLY want to know Chinese.

Traditional is GREAT, but so are the amount of hours you need to invest in to learn.

[sexyaccord]

simplified.... that's what china uses..... why would u learn traditional? some traditional words(that were changed) are impossible to write and there's no point since only Taiwan uses it and we all know they're going to get engulfed in the end and conform

Hong Kong still use traditional

[nipples]

traditional. try explaining over the phone to someone how to write a bloody mess that simplified is

[Lancerion]

Traditional, the characters are so much easier to remember compare to the weird looking Simplifieds. God I so hated Simplified back in high school! it was great they had both on the provincial, whenever I can't remember a word I would just go look on the Traditional side haha

[asian_XL]

30 million people in Taiwan and HK
1,300 million people in China

2,287 Simplified characters
40,000 characters in a Chinese dictionary

[KuSouL]

seriously it sounds like i'm hating = = but simplified chinese doesn't make sense (that is ... the characters that are affected) i grew up learning traditional and now it allow me to read both

that being said ... either way it's gonna be hard ~ chinese is just a tough language ...

traditional will always be > simplified in my opinion
but depends where and how you are planning on using chinese
maybe simplified might be a better idea for you

[q0192837465]

Traditional. Easy to learn simplified from traditional.

Just like speaking Cantonese. Ppl who speak cantonese can speak mandarin fluently. But ppl who speak mandarin can seldom speak cantonese without any accents

[silk]

u will be surprise how many kids does not know how to write Chinese nowadays ..it is because they type so much on computer ....

[wouwou]

u will be surprise how many kids does not know how to write Chinese nowadays ..it is because they type so much on computer ....

+1

I can barely write anymore

[124Y]

Just like speaking Cantonese. Ppl who speak cantonese can speak mandarin fluently. But ppl who speak mandarin can seldom speak cantonese without any accents

QFT!!!!!

My Cantonese sucks shit lol :lol!

[SpuGen]

I learned Traditional as a kid.
Of course.. I didn't retain any of it since I never really wrote/read Chinese as a kid. I can hear and speak it (Cantonese) properly though. I can even understand Toi Shan and Sun Wui dialects.
Other than numbers, my name, and random words.. I can't read or write it worth shit.

Mandarin is a different story though.
Canto-Mandarin I can understand, and speak a bit.
Normal Mandarin, same.
Northerner Mandarin.. you guys make my ears bleed.

You can tell when it's Canto-Mandarin because when we speak Mandarin, we're not as loud, we speak slower, and we actually enunciate.

[E=mc²]

Traditional. Easy to learn simplified from traditional.

Just like speaking Cantonese. Ppl who speak cantonese can speak mandarin fluently. But ppl who speak mandarin can seldom speak cantonese without any accents

Not true at all. It varies from person to person.

Plenty of examples of canto ppl who sound like shit speaking mando, as well as mando people who speak canto very well without much accent.

[m4k4v4li]

simplified is easier to learn and more commonly used if you go by shear numbers

but if you learn simplified you'll have a harder time reading traditional then if you learn traditional first...

my simplified is good but i cant fucking read a lot of traditional, and its frustrating... but only cuz i live in vancouver with lots of hongers and twangers

and how does simplified not make sense? it doesnt matter if it does or doesn't make sense compared to traditional its not like english where you can sound words out
sure you can peice together words with less difficulty in traditional but it doesn't even make a difference when you're trying to learn / read

if you don't know what a charracter is, or can't write it... you won't magically know how because you can peice parts together more easily

learning to read/write chinese is based on your ability to memorize and remember images, it differs and IMO is a lot harder than the english written language where you can use spelling / syntax / phonetics to help you write

if you're reading a sentence in chinese sometimes you're fucked and won't know what the sentence says if you don't recognize one or two characters

[Geenius]

no1 uses traditional anymore, only taiwan, and its a pain in the ass to learn, simplified is a lot easier also when your typing and shit.....go for simplified cause in the end, it all speaks and sounds the same

[E=mc²]

no1 uses traditional anymore, only taiwan, and its a pain in the ass to learn, simplified is a lot easier also when your typing and shit.....go for simplified cause in the end, it all speaks and sounds the same

you forgot hong kong

[asian_XL]

HK uses mix lang (english + trad chi + simp chi)

EX: "At the end 我们都得到了幸福 LA"

[Hehe]

IMO, go traditional. Simplified Chinese can't define something properly.

Try writing/typing the following in Simplified:
我愛乾妹... means I love god-sister

[124Y]

http://p7.p.pixnet.net/albums/userpics/7/9/1847779/49f08795b865b.jpg

Love is not the same without "heart".

[skyxx]

That is true. I grew up learning traditional during chinese school. I only recognize the one on the right.