Traditional vs Simplified: The Little Differences List

Traditional vs Simplified: The Little Differences List - Printable Version

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Traditional vs Simplified: The Little Differences List - Mesqueeb - 2011-02-24

major update!

This is a list with just those small differences between Traditional and Simplified. Those characters which are different but have (most of the time) the SAME unicode, so get messed up by fonts.
Examples: 差 (2 or 1 strokes) 以 (2 or 1 strokes) 空 (legs or dots)

I made a nice PDF with the whole list of what I could think of. Which I'll share through Google Docs:

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0Bw0LVMW5JDCgNDM4NzM3ZWMtOGMyOS00OTZkLWE1MmYtNmZlNjRlNmVjZWMy&hl=ja&authkey=CKiqkq8L

I hope it gets displayed correctly even if you don't have the same fonts as me!

Tell me what you think about it! And MOST definitely give me suggestions if you know more little differences!

Cheers!

-Mesqueeb

Traditional vs Simplified: The Little Differences List - vorpal - 2011-02-25

What about 別 (trad) vs 别 (simp), and 沒 (trad) vs 没 (simp)?

From what I can tell, Heisig actually included the simplified versions in RTH, which has been rather confusing / annoying. I thought this would be corrected in the errata, but no mention is made. (Or maybe my understanding is flawed and I am somehow wrong: I use the amazing eStroke program to tell me many things about Chinese.)

How about 拐? (The right shows up as mouth + power in RTK, whereas on my computer it appears as mouth + blade).

*EDIT: I meant, in that last sentence, RTH, not RTK. Sorry!

Traditional vs Simplified: The Little Differences List - Mesqueeb - 2011-02-25

vorpal Wrote:What about 別 (trad) vs 别 (simp), and 沒 (trad) vs 没 (simp)?

How about 拐? (The right shows up as mouth + power in RTK, whereas on my computer it appears as mouth + blade).

I've updated the list!! (see post 1's link again) Thanks for your input!!

If anyone knows more tell me! ^^ I'll give this list to my Chinese teachers when it's finished!

-Mesqueeb

Traditional vs Simplified: The Little Differences List - zer0range - 2011-02-25

A lot of these are differences in font/style.

Traditional vs Simplified: The Little Differences List - Mesqueeb - 2011-02-26

zer0range Wrote:A lot of these are differences in font/style.

I understand what you mean, but in fact the differences I pointed out are considered "faulty" in either simplified or traditional.

I am following a chinese course at the university and we have a lot of Chinese teachers. And 差 is a perfect example: it's just wrong if you don't do it with one long stroke, is what they all say. So everyone in china does it like that. But yet again, in Taiwan the norm is the 1 long one split in 2 strokes. there it's not "correct" to write it with one, though because of cursive script people sometimes do it anyway.

What I am trying to say is that I think it is quite fun to know these differences, as they do matter, but are not so important. Such knowledge distinguishes us again from the typical "non-heisig" hanzi and kanji learners. And be aware that people do actually write these small differences in mainland China (in Taiwan however you often see simplifications like this). It is not JUST a font difference. ^^

-Mesqueeb

Traditional vs Simplified: The Little Differences List - vorpal - 2011-02-27

I'm pretty sure I can come up with some more... I'll try to get to it this week! I'm really appreciative that you're undertaking this, as I am extremely interested in hanzi and these differences are very cool to see and have studied in some capacity!

Traditional vs Simplified: The Little Differences List - jorrebenst - 2011-02-27

Mesqueeb Wrote:Such knowledge extinguishes us again from the typical "non-heisig" hanzi and kanji learners.
-Mesqueeb

I'm very sorry for the insanely off-topic post, but I find it very amusing that we get "extinguished by knowledge", haha.

Traditional vs Simplified: The Little Differences List - jettyke - 2011-02-27

jorrebenst Wrote:
Mesqueeb Wrote:Such knowledge extinguishes us again from the typical "non-heisig" hanzi and kanji learners.
-Mesqueeb
I'm very sorry for the insanely off-topic post, but I find it very amusing that we get "extinguished by knowledge", haha.

haha! Superb! Here we are...extinguishing burning braincells.

Traditional vs Simplified: The Little Differences List - Mesqueeb - 2011-03-06

check the major update I made!
No more Heisig's primitive names, but now the strokes are depicted!

I've also added a whole bunch, and changed the layout a bit!

(just redownload the link of post 1)

Traditional vs Simplified: The Little Differences List - mizunooto - 2011-03-06

Thanks a lot Mesqueeb! You've really extinguished yourself with this Tongue

Consider your file downloaded!

I am trying to work with T and S so it all helps~

Traditional vs Simplified: The Little Differences List - louischa - 2011-03-06

Nice work! This answers some of the confusion I was having for certain characters!
Forgive me (and please don't extinguish me) if I that should be obvious, but is there any way to download that pdf of yours? (all I can do is save individual pages as .png) And which software did you use to make it?

I am also concerned about the remarks of some in this thread: is it true that Heisig used mainly the simplified forms, or are these the japanese standard forms, which differ from the hanzi shown in your document? I am just confused among others by 窓(まど)
(window); my Japanese tutor writes it with two dots instead of two legs. But in all printed material, I see it with two human legs. She insists it must be written with two dots. So why the discrepancy?

Traditional vs Simplified: The Little Differences List - vorpal - 2011-03-06

Here's another that I found quite interesting:
麥 (trad), 麦 (simp)

It's unclear what the bottom primitive is in the traditional character. Heisig lists it as walking legs (which it clearly is in the simplified character), but it kind of looks like moon as in 夕, although the third stroke is somewhat elongated.

Again, thanks for this. I really appreciate it and will continue to send things as I notice them.

Traditional vs Simplified: The Little Differences List - Vaste - 2011-04-25

Typically traditional characters (especially the MOE font) are more conservative about differences in etymology.

It's wrong to say that 母 and 每 are "unchanged" (unless you're thinking that traditional characters comes from simplified). In fact the parts in 每 and 毒 are not related, and in simplified 毋 changed to 母. Apparently 毒 comes from 毐 which comes from 毋 (which is what you see in the traditional 毒). However, both 毋 and 母 comes from 女.

More fun: 苟 and 茍 (different characters) where 茍 can be seen in 敬 traditional (simplified is like japanese). The top part of 茍 can also be found in 寬, 蔑, 夢 and 瞢 (which looks different from 苜).

More fun: in simp and trad both 左 and 右 are written the same although their etymology are different (left vs right hand), and this order is preserved in Japanese.

However in Japanese, the right part of 肺 is 市, where as in the two Chinese it's 巿 (written like 朿 without the last two strokes). In 鬧(闹) however, it's still 市 and not 巿. (Is it perhaps 閙 in Japanese?)

祿 and 禄 have different unicode code points, but although 碌 has the same difference, there's only one unicode.

麥： http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&characterInput=%E9%BA%A5
Also: [Image: 9EA6.gif]

來： http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&characterInput=%E4%BE%86
Also: [Image: 6765.gif]

Traditional vs Simplified: The Little Differences List - vorpal - 2011-04-25

Vaste: this is a topic that interests me tremendously. Is there a good way to start learning more on this in a single resource? Any books / articles you would recommend? And if you have any more tidbits like this, please do keep them coming... han simplification / standardization is a subject that fascinates me but which I currently know very little about.