I'm sorry if this has already been discussed here, but I was just curious to ascertain what most learners here are focused on between traditional and simplified characters.

The classes I'm taking are only offered in simplified characters, but I'm insisting on learning traditional characters (with the ability to recognize the associated simplified characters - although I couldn't write them all) all the same, as my primary interest in Chinese is traditional hanzi. (My teacher thinks I'm silly, but given that no one else in my class even cares about learning more than pinyin, I think she's just happy that someone is interested in written Chinese.)

So, long story short: traditional characters for me. What about you all?

It's not really a matter of "popularity" but what you want to do with your Chinese. Since the PRC uses only simplified characters now, it's not surprising that people would be more interested in them than in traditional.

my chinese friend said if I wanted to learn real chinese, then traditional is the way to go. But since I know a lot of Japanese kanji (which is simplified in essence to an extent. There are a lot of traditional writing in there as well.) I already have a leg up.

But traditional is the way to go, I think

What does "real chinese" mean? If you only learn traditional characters, you cannot read PRC-produced materials from the last 50 years or so. That seems absurd that a newspaper or novel printed in modern China is not "real Chinese".

Learning both is probably the best idea for most people but unless you are specifically interested in non-PRC material or pre-WW2 Chinese stuff, simplified is better to learn. This isn't just an abstract issue of which one you personally think looks better.

Nope it's a popularity issue. If I may illustrate: Bruce Lee before he became famous: not real Chinese. Bruce Lee into the present day: Foreigner-slaying superman.

yudantaiteki Wrote:What does "real chinese" mean? If you only learn traditional characters, you cannot read PRC-produced materials from the last 50 years or so. That seems absurd that a newspaper or novel printed in modern China is not "real Chinese".

Learning both is probably the best idea for most people but unless you are specifically interested in non-PRC material or pre-WW2 Chinese stuff, simplified is better to learn. This isn't just an abstract issue of which one you personally think looks better.

I guess he was talking about hong kong characters vs mainland characters. Traditional vs simplified ones.

Where do you guys get the idea that people who know traditional characters can't read simplified texts?

All you need to know is the rules of simplification.

For some characters, sure, but 发， 习， 听, and quite a few others don't follow any rules.

And I know some native Chinese speakers from Taiwan who have quite a bit of trouble with texts using simplified characters.

The number of characters that do not follow the rules is minimal and can be learned by any user of traditional characters in a short amount of time.

Simplified characters are ugly mothers, but they're very easy to learn. When I went to China I was able to surmise simplified characters pretty easily (e.g. it was pretty easy to work out that 发 was 發 from seeing 出发)
I'd do traditional first, then pick up the simplified ones, there aren't many of them.

Here's another suggestion: when you get around to entering sentences into Anki, you could just paste the sentence twice on every card, once in traditional and once in simplified, thereby you get equal exposure.

I've decided to go with simplified, because most of what I want to do in Chinese involves them. I believe this should be the decisive factor, not tangential ones like "how easy it is to go from one to the other" and things like that. Of course, if you want to know both, you'll need to learn both, but I'd recommend starting with the simplified ones and then incrementally work on how to "complicate" them — but that's an individual choice.

About the rules for simplification, many of them are very straightforward (like 車→车, 貝→贝 and 釒→钅), so it doesn't matter with which character set you've started; there also many that are not as simple, but these are perhaps equally hard independently of what set the person has chosen to begin with — the ones who have started with traditional ones would have to be really dedicated to actually know what was simplified, and vice-versa (perhaps these should serve as examples: 辦→办, 雞→鸡, 縣→县.)

yudantaiteki Wrote:What does "real chinese" mean?

I would stand by the notion that traditional characters are "real Chinese", where as simplified characters are bastardized, government-imposed, totalitarian Chinese. Traditional characters are the ones that the Chinese people used for 1000 years or so, and still would be using if a communist dictatorship hadn't outlawed them.

I'm learning both. I prefer Taiwanese Chinese but since I am going to get a degree in Chinese I will have to learn symplified because that is all they teach in universities it seems. (Well at least the ones I am looking at.)

I think you should go with traditional because:

1) I personally have found it easier to transition from Japanese
2) Taiwan has a lot of great resources and they use tradional
3) You can get the gist of (written) Cantonese and Ancient Chinese if you cared to.

JimmySeal Wrote:I would stand by the notion that traditional characters are "real Chinese", where as simplified characters are bastardized, government-imposed, totalitarian Chinese. Traditional characters are the ones that the Chinese people used for 1000 years or so, and still would be using if a communist dictatorship hadn't outlawed them.

But the thing is, most things people do, in any country, was in some way or another imposed or sanctioned by the government, with the use of laws. In PRC, this happened to be the writing system (I've read some say that the problem was the use of physical violence, but AFAIK there's no actual evidence.) We've had multiple similar changes that were made to the Portuguese orthography, "soft-imposed" by the government; in the beginning people cry an moan, but after it's done they end up accepting the changes and, after a few years, most of them—especially the newer generations who grew up after the changes were made—can't even stand the way things were done before. This happens in China, too, which is why it's common to see young people who say they don't like traditional characters at all. In the end, most people just use, prefer and defend what they've got used to.

So, what I mean is, if we're going to call something "not real" just because it was imposed by the government, then most things are not real, which does not make sense, unless you're using a specific meaning of the word—which then becomes nothing more than a matter of discussing semantics. And also that maybe the Taiwanese could accept and defend simplified characters if the conditions created by their government were different and there were not a political statement attached to their choice (the "we're not going to conform to PRC's imposition" kind of thing.)

As gyuujuice has pointed out, the transition from Japanese to traditional is easier I find. But learning both is a necessity. I haven't made the transition yet from simplified recognition, that will come much later.

The PRC's position was baseless, the ROC's 'reactionary' position was just as baseless. But it's all in the past now. My choice is purely for aesthetic reasons, and the fact that "I started with it first" or "Mom" vs "Mum" spelling/pronunciation. There is no better or worse. There really was no need to simplify the characters. Simplified characters will win by sheer magnitude but not within our generation. I've been trying to find an electronic dictionary made later than 2000 that supports traditional characters, as of yet, nothing.

In anycase as womacks23 said, it doesn't hurt learning both. But learn traditional first. /me hugs his Taiwanese material.

JimmySeal Wrote:

yudantaiteki Wrote:What does "real chinese" mean?

I would stand by the notion that traditional characters are "real Chinese", where as simplified characters are bastardized, government-imposed, totalitarian Chinese. Traditional characters are the ones that the Chinese people used for 1000 years or so, and still would be using if a communist dictatorship hadn't outlawed them.

Although that's irrelevant for learners; the fact still remains that if you want to read PRC material from the last 50 years or so, you have to know the simplified characters, regardless of how you feel about them ideologically.

liosama Wrote:The PRC's position was baseless, the ROC's 'reactionary' position was just as baseless. But it's all in the past now. My choice is purely for aesthetic reasons, and the

That's right — things are as they are, not as they "should be" or as they "would be if it weren't for the government intervening." As for aesthetics, I prefer the minimalist beauty of the simplified forms... but that's just the minimalist in me speaking.

liosama Wrote:I've been trying to find an electronic dictionary made later than 2000 that supports traditional characters, as of yet, nothing.

I don't know whether you have a touch or iPhone, but if you do, you can download the 'Pleco Chinese Dictionary' app and buy the Xiandai Hanyu Guifan Cidian dictionary they offer; you can switch between traditional and simplified.

JimmySeal Wrote:

yudantaiteki Wrote:What does "real chinese" mean?

I would stand by the notion that traditional characters are "real Chinese", where as simplified characters are bastardized, government-imposed, totalitarian Chinese. Traditional characters are the ones that the Chinese people used for 1000 years or so, and still would be using if a communist dictatorship hadn't outlawed them.

And Japanese simplifications are democratically-imposed bastardisations

The traditional characters are also bastardizations.

I'm sure Jimmy only writes in oracle bone script

(I do think PRC simplifications were unneeded and are ugly though)

Jarvik7 Wrote:The traditional characters are also bastardizations.

I'm sure Jimmy only writes in oracle bone script

Who dares disturb me from my oracle bone script writing?

Changes in language and orthography over time aren't necessarily bastardizations. Check it out, bro. I would argue that the natural evolution of Chinese script over the thousands of years up until the Communist Revolution were precisely that: natural evolution, while the sweeping, ugly, arbitrary, viciously enforced reforms known as simplified Chinese were indeed a bastardization. Of course, a good share of that is merely my opinion, but from what you've just said, it seems you share at least part of that opinion.

There are many pro and contra arguments:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_on_t...characters

I am more conviced by the Pro-Traditional characters arguments.
It would be great if they could reintroduce the traditional characters in daily usage.
I don't like simplified characters,
they are ugly according to my aestethic feeling
and the simplification was illogical (I think the japanese simplification was much better
面 now means 'face' (traditional: 面) AND 'flour' (traditional: 麵). Why?!
买 means 'buy', and the character elements are absolutely non-sense.
The traditional 'buy' (買) contains 罒and貝. In Ancient China 貝 were used as a currency.
There are hundreds of such examples.

My teacher insisted me to learn simplified, so I learnt both.
If possible: BOYCOTT simplified characters!!! !!! !!! (+﹏+)~

;-)

yudantaiteki Wrote:

JimmySeal Wrote:

yudantaiteki Wrote:What does "real chinese" mean?

I would stand by the notion that traditional characters are "real Chinese", where as simplified characters are bastardized, government-imposed, totalitarian Chinese. Traditional characters are the ones that the Chinese people used for 1000 years or so, and still would be using if a communist dictatorship hadn't outlawed them.

Although that's irrelevant for learners; the fact still remains that if you want to read PRC material from the last 50 years or so, you have to know the simplified characters, regardless of how you feel about them ideologically.

Sorry, but I don't agree. Taiwanese ARE able to read simplified and (Mainland) Chinese ARE also able to read traditional.

Whatever version you decide to learn you WILL be able to read the other version,
but not to write it, of course.

Mainland Chinese also have to read material which is older than 50years and all the karaoke song lyrics are mostly in traditional script.
Many Taiwanese buy Mainland books because they are really really really cheap in China etc.

To quote from my website (wazu.jp):

"Chinese languages/dialects are written using Han Ideographs. Chinese populations outside China did not adopt the writing reforms implemented by mainland China in the 1950s. Therefore they continue to use the traditional variety of writing called fantizi (繁体字), which means "complex writing". This traditional writing is used in Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and overseas Chinese communities. Simplified writing is used in Singapore and most of China".

Some Taiwanese can read simplified characters, but some can't. I know people in the second category. The same is true for mainlanders and traditional script. I'm not sure what the percentages are, but I am skeptical that many on the mainland learn traditional characters unless they study literature at a high level. I remember hearing about lots of Chinese not being able to read the poems of Du Fu in the garden in Chengdu. They looked rather formidable to me, even though I knew the Japanese varieties and had studied a lot of the traditional forms.