Traditional vs Reformed characters

[hindupridemn]

This thread is now locked. For any further discussion, please go to the thread Simplified or Traditional?

What's the difference?

[linguoboy]

Strokes.

[hindupridemn]

Fewer strokes? Are Reformed easier to write and recognize? Are there Reformed characters for every idea that can be expressed by Traditional characters? Can I get by with just learning pinyin when learning Chinese, at least at first?

[Yasna]

Fewer strokes?

Yes.

Are Reformed easier to write and recognize?

Generally yes.

No.

Are there Reformed characters for every idea that can be expressed by Traditional characters?

Yes

Can I get by with just learning pinyin when learning Chinese, at least at first?

It depends what your goals are with Chinese. If you just want to have simple conversations, then you can do without the characters. For just about anything else, you will need the characters.

[Pangu]

Fewer strokes? Are Reformed easier to write and recognize?

It's actually called "Simplified Chinese/Characters/Hanzi" in English or Jiantizi in Pinyin.

Are there Reformed characters for every idea that can be expressed by Traditional characters?

There is NOT a simplified version of every character. Generally speaking only characters that are more complicated would have a simplified version.

Traditional Chinese is used officially in Taiwan (ROC), Hong Kong and Macau today. Simplified Chinese is used officially in mainland China (PRC) and Singapore. Both are used in oversea Chinese communities depending on the background of the Chinese living there. While Traditional Chinese still dominates in most oversea Chinese communities, the influx of immigrants from mainland China combined with stronger international influence of mainland China, Simplified Chinese is gaining ground.

Can I get by with just learning pinyin when learning Chinese, at least at first?

The short answer is "it depends".

What are your goals with learning Chinese? If you are just toying around and just want to get a basic understanding and maybe learn a few words then I would say there is no need to learn characters at all. However, if you are even half serious about learning Chinese, you can't get away with not knowing them. Pinyin is only used for two main purposes: teaching children and foreigners how to pronounce Chinese and for transliteration Chinese names into Roman letters. It is not seen or used as an "official" script in any form. In other words, if you visit any Chinese-speaking environment, chances are you will only see characters and not Pinyin.

I know of some Chinese courses where they don't even teach characters until the second year. However, a great majority of college Chinese courses start the students with characters right away so they get used to them. I personally believe the latter is better.

Learning characters, or Hanzi, has a steeper learning curve than learning a phonetic spelling system. However, it does get easier and in the long run, learning new vocabulary becomes easier because you understand the root characters that make up a new word. Often you can even figure it out without looking it up.

[OldBoring]

See here to get an idea: http://www.xywq.com/wenshi/files/6-wenzi/01-zidian.html

Usually you learn the Pinyin first, and then read texts with pinyin marked on each character.
And... our traditional method of learning hanzi is to write them repeatedly a lot of times.
Don't know how non-natives learn Chinese characters.

[mōdgethanc]

See here to get an idea: http://www.xywq.com/wenshi/files/6-wenzi/01-zidian.html

Usually you learn the Pinyin first, and then read texts with pinyin marked on each character.
And... our traditional method of learning hanzi is to write them repeatedly a lot of times.
Don't know how non-natives learn Chinese characters.

The same way, of course. Well, I assume they teach you how the system of radicals works too.

[linguistixx]

it really depends on what your goal is.

if you want to be able to read "older literature" then of course you will need to know the traditional script. Same if you are interested in literature from Taiwan and Hong Kong (as they still use traditional characters in these places).

If you are a karaoke fan, then knowing traditional chinese characters are important as well as on the screens in karaoke places the lyrics are almost exclusively in traditional chinese characters :=)))

If you go for simplified characters, you can still switch to traditional characters later on...that is pretty easy...and also the other way around it is not that much of a struggle, as in many cases, just the radical
has more strokes. Therefore, knowing the strokes of different radicals in both simplified and traditional already helps a lot!

Some people claim that for them, studying traditional characters is easier than studying simplified characters, as there is more information provided within traditional characters. They feel that simplified characters are harder to learn because less strokes provide less information about the semantics of a character/word.

[mōdgethanc]

Fewer strokes?

Generally but not always.

Are Reformed easier to write and recognize?

Not exactly. They take less time to write, but I find them harder to recognize because it's easier to see what the radicals are in Traditional. Simplified characters sometimes feel like an assortment of random strokes to me.

Are there Reformed characters for every idea that can be expressed by Traditional characters?

Most simplified characters have a traditional equivalent. For some, two or three traditional characters were combined into one, something I find very annoying. These are meant to be told apart by context.

Can I get by with just learning pinyin when learning Chinese, at least at first?

If your goal is to talk to people and not be able to read anything, yeah. At some point you will have to learn characters if you are serious about the language. And if you are, I would recommend limiting the number of other languages you plan on studying.

[johnklepac]

Fewer strokes?

Fewer strokes if the traditional characters massively stress you out. More strokes if you go years without learning to recognize the character for "calories" on nutrition labels.

[hedwards]

For anybody that comes here later.

Be aware that the use of simplified or traditional Chinese is likely to be construed as a political statement in the PRC or Taiwan. Obvious foreigners may get some leeway, but it's something re recognize.

As for characters early or later. I tried learning the Pinyin only early on and it didn't work. It's a grossly inefficient way of learning new vocabulary as Mandarin Chinese has a huge number of homophones that are only distinguishable by context and character. Consequently, flash cards will not work.

So, you're stuck either learning the words in context and hopefully keeping them straight or learning the characters. The native speakers do the former and I recommend non-natives do the latter as it's nice to be able to see the progress you're making and have pen pals.

As far as learning the characters goes, learning the radicals is very, very useful. Trying to learn characters without the radicals would be sort of like trying to memorize English words by the strokes. I'm sure you could do it, but it's such a pain that it's not even worth considering.

再见。 现在我想吃饭。

[Pangu]

As far as learning the characters goes, learning the radicals is very, very useful.

Very good point. I would like to add to this that as a learner gets more familiar with characters, they will start noticing that some of the more "complicated" characters are often made up of characters that you may already know, which makes it much easier to memorize. For example, 語 is 言 on the left, 五 on top right and 口 on bottom right. This makes it much easier to remember than trying to memorize each stroke and where they go.

[hedwards]

As far as learning the characters goes, learning the radicals is very, very useful.

Very good point. I would like to add to this that as a learner gets more familiar with characters, they will start noticing that some of the more "complicated" characters are often made up of characters that you may already know, which makes it much easier to memorize. For example, 語 is 言 on the left, 五 on top right and 口 on bottom right. This makes it much easier to remember than trying to memorize each stroke and where they go.

I was afraid of the characters when I first got to China, I wouldn't even look at them if they weren't on a menu. Eventually I got over myself and started to notice that there were a fixed number of elements that made up all the characters. And more, they often times include hints about the meaning and or pronunciation to those that know.

When all is said and done, the total number of radicals and components is under 400 depending upon how you count and whether or not you consider the radicals to be different depending upon location.

With 2 hours of study a day, one can learn all of them in about 6 weeks or so. And then save time on the remainder. But, even just the 30 most commonly used radicals pretty much give you 2000 characters with minimal fuss in writing.

Eventually I'll learn the traditional characters as well, because there's still a ton of literature in Chinese that's still traditional characters and anything in Taiwan is going to be traditional as well. Not to mention that things in Chinatowns tend to be traditional characters.

[ling]

Not all simplified characters are the product of reductions in stroke number.

Case in point: 夠 (trad.) vs. 够 (simp.)

[linguoboy]

Not all simplified characters are the product of reductions in stroke number.

Case in point: 夠 (trad.) vs. 够 (simp.)

Aren't both variants found in Traditional sources?

[ling]

No that I'm aware of, but it's possible. In Taiwan, however, I always see the 多 on the left.

[Pangu]

No that I'm aware of, but it's possible. In Taiwan, however, I always see the 多 on the left.

That is the version taught in schools in Taiwan.

[Babelfish]

Very good point. I would like to add to this that as a learner gets more familiar with characters, they will start noticing that some of the more "complicated" characters are often made up of characters that you may already know, which makes it much easier to memorize. For example, 語 is 言 on the left, 五 on top right and 口 on bottom right. This makes it much easier to remember than trying to memorize each stroke and where they go.

It didn't even occur to me that someone might try to learn characters without knowing that! I sure hope it isn't common... I read about Chinese characters and their structure when I started, and that's exactly how I (try to) learn characters, although it's often confusing - it took a while to remember on which side of the tree is the eye in 想...
Frankly, I don't know all the radicals, I do know most. There are also quite a few characters and components which aren't obvious radicals - e.g. the merger of 手 and 戈 in 我 - but the vast majority are simple combinations.

[OldBoring]

This thread is now locked. For any further discussion, please go to the thread Simplified or Traditional?