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Are you learning Simplified or Tradtional | ||
Tags: Chinese Characters | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Ayane Newbie United States isby-girlfriend.smac Joined 6084 days ago 32 posts - 32 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 1 of 17 11 June 2009 at 9:20pm | IP Logged |
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Which Chinese script are you learning and why?
I personally am learning Simplified, since the place I plan to visit in the future where they (for the most part) speak Mandarin is Singapore and as far as I know, the majority of people write with Simplified characters there. Also, since most of the books to learn to read and write only teach the simplified. Though, I would probably come across Traditional more 'cause of an a personal interest in Taiwanese dramas and Manhua, but it's a bit intimidating (I also like the look of simplified more) and a lot of the common characters show up as the letter V (or not at all) on my computer, all the simplified characters work though...a good amount of traditional characters work, but I would like it better if they all did. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5765 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes  Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 2 of 17 11 June 2009 at 11:23pm | IP Logged |
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Both, traditional first because coming from kanji, it's easy for me and I heard that it should be easier to switch from traditional to simplified.
You just need a font that can display traditional characters. I got some from here. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| OneEye Diglot Senior Member Japan Joined 6849 days ago 518 posts - 784 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, Taiwanese, German, French | Message 3 of 17 12 June 2009 at 6:47am | IP Logged |
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Traditional. They are the characters that have been used for nearly two thousand years. Simplified is easy enough to understand if you know traditional already. Many simplified characters are either "straightened out" from the cursive forms, or shorthand. I also think they are more aesthetic.
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| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5958 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 4 of 17 13 June 2009 at 7:06am | IP Logged |
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Well I started with simplified and then switched to traditional. Most of the Chinese, non-learning material that I locally encounter use traditional characters. I plan on learning simplified after the traditional characters.
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 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6908 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 17 13 June 2009 at 6:00pm | IP Logged |
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I'm learning simplified but will probably add traditional if I see it necessary (such as exposing myself to older material, or learning Cantonese).
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 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6893 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 17 13 June 2009 at 9:51pm | IP Logged |
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Simplified, since it covers the vast majority of existing material unless you go to Taiwan and a couple of other smaller places.
Besides, learning the danged things is a monumental task in any case and I rather progress a little faster with simplified until I get to some kind of literate level. After that I will probably want to learn to read traditional too. Whether I will ever want to learn to write them I don't know. Also, and especially since the opposite view is often expressed, I personally find many of the simplified characters more elegant and aesthetically appealing than traditional: a few graceful and to-the-point strokes that get the meaning across more efficiently than a shambled heap of criss-cross pine needles unnecessarily cluttering up the space without adding anything to the meaning most of the time: "less is more". In the computer age traditional are also impractical since they require a larger font size to pick out the patterns in the clutter. Having said that, it's not a very big deal either. Only some thirty per cent of characters are different. Even with my very limited simplified reading skills, I can often pick out and understand large chunks of traditional text too. Edited by Hencke on 13 June 2009 at 10:03pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5765 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 7 of 17 13 June 2009 at 11:31pm | IP Logged |
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To my eyes, some simplified hanzi look crippled when printed. =D
I'm tempted to learn seal script. Edited by Bao on 13 June 2009 at 11:33pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ChristopherB Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 6315 days ago 851 posts - 1074 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, German, French | Message 8 of 17 14 June 2009 at 8:31am | IP Logged |
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Traditional, baby. :D
For one, I just find them to look much better (although I don't find simplified as ugly as some people make them out to be) and it's quite neat writing characters that have been in use for a couple thousand years. Edited by ChristopherB on 14 June 2009 at 8:34am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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