Simplified or Traditional?

[TeneReef]

there is no conflict except possibly the grammar, for all I know, the Chinese used in Hong Kong and Macau is very puzzling for me because I hardly understand it = P.

But in written texts, they use Mandarin grammar (take a look at newspapers and books released in HK or Macau, it's 99% Mandarin).

[mōdgethanc]

Traditional Chinese is used way more, it is used in Hong Kong, Macau,Taiwan, and People's Republic of China (the mainland of China) and perhaps in several other places, but I do not know that much.

...Used in mainland China for calligraphy, maybe.

[linguoboy]

Traditional Chinese is used way more, it is used in Hong Kong, Macau,Taiwan, and People's Republic of China (the mainland of China) and perhaps in several other places, but I do not know that much.

...Used in mainland China for calligraphy, maybe.

I was actually a bit surprised by how much it was used for decorative purposes there, particularly in signs identifying establishments. But never in warnings, instructions, directional signs, descriptive texts on menus, or anything else meant to convey content. So not just in calligraphy, but in circumstances where you might expect to find calligraphy used in the West.

[OldBoring]

In theory, PRC law requires everything to be written in Simplified, except calligraphy and historical things. But it seems that trademarks in Traditional are allowed.
Sometimes, there are campaigns for the "correct use" of the language, and shop names in Traditional are forced to change it to Simplified.
And if people keep writing 理發 instead of 理髮 (both character are merged into 发 in Simplified)... then it's better that they write in Simplified...

Then there are personal preferences in handwriting. I know several people in Mainland China who systematically write their surname 陳 instead of 陈, and one who always writes 許 instead of 许.
In Shanghai a lot of handwritings use 車... including 亻丁車 (a mix of 二简 and Traditional), where 亻丁 (imagine the two parts merged in one character) is the 二简 for 停.
I have a weird habit, that I instinctively write 潤 instead of 润。

[Pangu]

In theory, PRC law requires everything to be written in Simplified, except calligraphy and historical things. But it seems that trademarks in Traditional are allowed.
Sometimes, there are campaigns for the "correct use" of the language, and shop names in Traditional are forced to change it to Simplified.
And if people keep writing 理發 instead of 理髮 (both character are merged into 发 in Simplified)... then it's better that they write in Simplified...

Hahaha... this reminds me of how at local Chinese restaurants here, you see more and more restaurants serving "face".

More and more mainland Chinese are moving here but Traditional Chinese still dominates (although not for long) so many menus and signage were typed in Simplified Chinese then "converted" to Traditional Chinese. This is why you see 牛肉面 and 雜醬面 when it should be 麵.

As stated many times before, I have absolutely no problems with Simplified Chinese, and I am fluent in it myself. However, automatically converting FROM Simplified TO Traditional Chinese is one of the worst things you can do because some simplified characters have several traditional forms and software isn't smart enough to know which one you meant.

Then there are personal preferences in handwriting. I know several people in Mainland China who systematically write their surname 陳 instead of 陈, and one who always writes 許 instead of 许.
In Shanghai a lot of handwritings use 車... including 亻丁車 (a mix of 二简 and Traditional), where 亻丁 (imagine the two parts merged in one character) is the 二简 for 停.
I have a weird habit, that I instinctively write 潤 instead of 润。

Majority of simplified characters have been around long before the communists made them "official". People have been using them for writing letters and notes and sometimes even calligraphy (草書). So I'm not surprised people mix them occasionally.

[mōdgethanc]

In theory, PRC law requires everything to be written in Simplified

Oh, China, you're such a nanny.

[Pangu]

In theory, PRC law requires everything to be written in Simplified

Oh, China, you're such a nanny.

I don't see what's wrong with that law since Simplified Chinese is the official script in mainland China.

China gets bashed when they don't enforce their laws but also when they do. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

[linguoboy]

In theory, PRC law requires everything to be written in Simplified

Oh, China, you're such a nanny.

I don't see what's wrong with that law since Simplified Chinese is the official script in mainland China.

I can see why a government would need an official script (de jure or otherwise) for administrative purposes. I can't see a need to enforce its use universally. What difference does it make what script someone uses in a sign on their place of business?

[Pangu]

In theory, PRC law requires everything to be written in Simplified

Oh, China, you're such a nanny.

I don't see what's wrong with that law since Simplified Chinese is the official script in mainland China.

I can see why a government would need an official script (de jure or otherwise) for administrative purposes. I can't see a need to enforce its use universally. What difference does it make what script someone uses in a sign on their place of business?

Having an official script isn't just for administrative purposes, it's for the purpose for allowing everything to be understood by everyone in the country.

[linguoboy]

Having an official script isn't just for administrative purposes, it's for the purpose for allowing everything to be understood by everyone in the country.

Again, why is that necessary? Not everyone wants everything to be understood by everyone. It's an impossible goal in any case, given that there are something on the order of 12,000 characters officially approved for use in proper names whereas the official threshold for being considered "literate" in the written language is 2,000 characters (1,500 in rural areas)--a threshold that 8% of the population still fail to meet (according to a test administered at the end of primary school and then never revisited, regardless of whether the subjects continue their education or not).

[hedwards]

Having an official script isn't just for administrative purposes, it's for the purpose for allowing everything to be understood by everyone in the country.

Again, why is that necessary? Not everyone wants everything to be understood by everyone. It's an impossible goal in any case, given that there are something on the order of 12,000 characters officially approved for use in proper names whereas the official threshold for being considered "literate" in the written language is 2,000 characters (1,500 in rural areas)--a threshold that 8% of the population still fail to meet (according to a test administered at the end of primary school and then never revisited, regardless of whether the subjects continue their education or not).

What you're failing to recognize is that those 2,000 characters are mostly the ones that they simplified and that the literacy rate has risen substantially since the government made those changes. What's more, that level of literacy is actually quite substantial.

I've lived in poor areas of China and the fact that it's only 8% is rather amazing. I've taught in schools where the power was going on and off during lessons. The rain leaked through the roof and the letters were falling off the sides of the buildings. And that was at one of the richer schools that could afford to hire a foreign teacher. I can only imagine what it was like at schools that were less well off.

I'm amazed at how many people that seemingly are up on the PRC have such a huge blind spot for what things are really like outside the major metropolitan areas.

Personally, I'm not seeing a reason for the simplification as it doesn't make learning to write that much easier, but it does make learning to read more challenging. I'm guessing that it didn't occur to them to change the methods learned to teach writing but it did occur to them to change the way that the writing is taught.

[Pangu]

What you're failing to recognize is that those 2,000 characters are mostly the ones that they simplified and that the literacy rate has risen substantially since the government made those changes. What's more, that level of literacy is actually quite substantial.

Using Simplified Characters may have helped a little but I doubt it's anywhere near as significant as you would like to believe.

Literacy rate has much more to do with education and how well a country is doing economically. If you look at the literacy rate of more developed places that use characters, such as Taiwan (98%) & Japan (99%), they are significantly higher than China (92%). But even at 92%, China's literacy rate is relatively high for a developing country. It's higher than some countries that use phonetic spelling systems such as Malaysia (88%), Indonesia (90%) and South Africa (86%).

Point is, it's more of a coincidence that China's literacy rate increased in the last few decades after adopting Simplified Chinese as the standard script. It has much much more to do with the fact that China's economy is significantly better today than it was 20-30 years ago.

[linguoboy]

Literacy rate has much more to do with education and how well a country is doing economically. If you look at the literacy rate of more developed places that use characters, such as Taiwan (98%) & Japan (99%), they are significantly higher than China (92%).

Out of curiosity, what's the standard for "literacy" in Taiwan? Is it also determined by character recognition according to certain standardised tests?

[Pangu]

Literacy rate has much more to do with education and how well a country is doing economically. If you look at the literacy rate of more developed places that use characters, such as Taiwan (98%) & Japan (99%), they are significantly higher than China (92%).

Out of curiosity, what's the standard for "literacy" in Taiwan? Is it also determined by character recognition according to certain standardised tests?

I am no expert on literacy rate and how they are determined. My knowledge and interest in the subject go no further than the statistics I found on Wikipedia.

[hedwards]

What you're failing to recognize is that those 2,000 characters are mostly the ones that they simplified and that the literacy rate has risen substantially since the government made those changes. What's more, that level of literacy is actually quite substantial.

Using Simplified Characters may have helped a little but I doubt it's anywhere near as significant as you would like to believe.

Literacy rate has much more to do with education and how well a country is doing economically. If you look at the literacy rate of more developed places that use characters, such as Taiwan (98%) & Japan (99%), they are significantly higher than China (92%). But even at 92%, China's literacy rate is relatively high for a developing country. It's higher than some countries that use phonetic spelling systems such as Malaysia (88%), Indonesia (90%) and South Africa (86%).

Point is, it's more of a coincidence that China's literacy rate increased in the last few decades after adopting Simplified Chinese as the standard script. It has much much more to do with the fact that China's economy is significantly better today than it was 20-30 years ago.

Not really, I think you're assuming that they've changed the methods that they use to learn the script. AFAIK, they still use the traditional method of rote memorization requiring them to learn to write the character before they even know what the character means. Which means they don't get to benefit from mnemonic systems they might employ.

And it's a lot easier to rote memorize the simplified characters than the traditional characters. For me, traditional characters don't appear to be significantly different in terms of difficulty from the simplified characters, but that's because I'm not rote memorizing them. I'm memorizing them as a set of radicals and mapping my way through the character so I'm memorizing a couple of things rather than a dozen or more in some ases.

I could be wrong about that though, most of the folks I was dealing with were in rural areas where the methods aren't as up to date as in the cities.

[Pangu]

What you're failing to recognize is that those 2,000 characters are mostly the ones that they simplified and that the literacy rate has risen substantially since the government made those changes. What's more, that level of literacy is actually quite substantial.

Using Simplified Characters may have helped a little but I doubt it's anywhere near as significant as you would like to believe.

Literacy rate has much more to do with education and how well a country is doing economically. If you look at the literacy rate of more developed places that use characters, such as Taiwan (98%) & Japan (99%), they are significantly higher than China (92%). But even at 92%, China's literacy rate is relatively high for a developing country. It's higher than some countries that use phonetic spelling systems such as Malaysia (88%), Indonesia (90%) and South Africa (86%).

Point is, it's more of a coincidence that China's literacy rate increased in the last few decades after adopting Simplified Chinese as the standard script. It has much much more to do with the fact that China's economy is significantly better today than it was 20-30 years ago.

Not really, I think you're assuming that they've changed the methods that they use to learn the script. AFAIK, they still use the traditional method of rote memorization requiring them to learn to write the character before they even know what the character means. Which means they don't get to benefit from mnemonic systems they might employ.

And it's a lot easier to rote memorize the simplified characters than the traditional characters. For me, traditional characters don't appear to be significantly different in terms of difficulty from the simplified characters, but that's because I'm not rote memorizing them. I'm memorizing them as a set of radicals and mapping my way through the character so I'm memorizing a couple of things rather than a dozen or more in some ases.

I could be wrong about that though, most of the folks I was dealing with were in rural areas where the methods aren't as up to date as in the cities.

You just proved my point.

Literacy rate depends much more on how well developed a country is and less on what script they use, especially when the two scripts in question are as insignificantly different as Simplified & Traditional Chinese.

[linguistixx]

Simplified or Traditional script...that is one of the eternal questions when it comes to learning Chinese :=) It's not easy to answer this question and it just really depends on what you are learning Chinese for.

You can find a discussion about this exact topic here:

http://linguaholic.com/chinese-characte ... haracters/

This might gonna help you to make a decision.

I am actually learning both :=)

[OldBoring]

Simplified or Traditional script...that is one of the eternal questions when it comes to learning Chinese :=) It's not easy to answer this question and it just really depends on what you are learning Chinese for.

You can find a discussion about this exact topic here:

http://linguaholic.com/chinese-characte ... haracters/

This might gonna help you to make a decision.

I am actually learning both :=)

Thanks for the interesting input!

I'm learning Trad because I'm learning Cantonese, and everything in that language on the Internet seems to come from Hongkong. But our teacher has decided to train us to recognize Simp characters so for the ones that I have learned, I tend to know both forms.

Simplified characters are now dominant among the Hôa in Vietnam.

[do_shahbaz]

If Shijintai is also included in 'Simplified', then the former

[vijayjohn]

If Shijintai is also included in 'Simplified', then the former

Given that this thread is in the Chinese forum, I take the question to be specifically asking which set of characters you're learning for Chinese. Shinjitai is not used in Chinese.