What are simplified vs traditional Chinese characters?

Rather than using an alphabet Chinese uses characters called Hanzi to represent words and concepts. Modern Chinese speakers can use either Simplified or Traditional characters. What’s the difference and which should you learn? Check out below to find out.

What’s the history of simplified vs traditional Chinese characters?

Chinese characters have evolved over thousands of years starting with ancient pictographs. Over that time they became increasingly complex which led to various attempts to simplify them. The most important attempts was in the 1950s under Mao Zedong. Mao initiated a major campaign to improve literacy in China and so decided to simplify the writing system. Over a series of revisions and standardisations he created the simplified character system used in mainland China today. In places outside of Mao’s control like Hong Kong and Taiwan, no simplification was carried out, and for that reason Taiwan and Hong Kong continue to use Traditional characters where as mainland China uses Simplified Characters.

What is the difference between simplified and traditional chines characters?

Mao’s simplification process of traditional characters took make forms. Some characters were simplified by reducing the number of strokes, others by adopting cursive forms, and some by merging characters with the same pronunciation into a single characters. Many other characters didn’t change at all.

As a result, when you look at a set of traditional characters and their simplified counterparts, most will look the same or very similar but a few totally different.

Examples of characters changing to look very different include:

護 → 护

歸 → 归

藝 → 艺

However, changes like those above are not typical and for most characters there are small only small quite logical changes. For example, the character 訁was simplified to 讠and as a result all the characters that used 訁as a component changed too. This includes the characters below:

話 → 话

語 → 语

誰 → 谁

Once you realise that the 訁character has been simplified and then this has been applied to all other characters that use it, it is very easy to understand the changes in the characters.

Many important Chinese characters were already sufficiently simple and have not changed at all. For example:

人 → 人

不 → 不

了 → 了

So yes, Traditional and Simplified characters do differ, but it is easy to overestimate the changes and by choosing to study one you aren’t locking yourself out of the other.

Should I learn simplified or traditional Chinese characters?

Simplified characters are easier to learn than traditional characters due to their reduced complexity. In terms of writing, they are equally easy to type but handwriting traditional characters can be harder due to the increased number of strokes. However, the fact simplified characters are easier to learn shouldn’t be the deciding factor in your decision. The deciding factor should be your language goals and future plans.

In terms of language goals, if your goal is to engage with older Chinese literature and Chinese history that predates the simplification process then knowledge of traditional characters is a must have. Similarly, if your interests are in calligraphy then traditional characters are a better fit.

For most people, the main consideration should be where they expect to travel and study in the future. If you are planning to travel to Hong Kong or Taiwan then traditional Chinese characters will be more appropriate as they are the characters used. Alternatively, if you plan to study and travel in mainland China then simplified characters make more sense.

Can I learn simplified and traditional characters at the same time?

You can definitely learn both simplified and traditional characters at the same time and as discussed it is not like learning two entirely separate things. For the majority of traditional characters and their simplified counterpart you can usually see how one became the other. However, I would not recommend learning both at the same time. Learning Chinese characters is a difficult task already with plenty to keep you occupied, to begin with you should pick Simplfied or Traditional characters and stick with them. But you don’t need to worry that by choosing one you are locking yourself out from understanding the other forever. Once you have learned one set of characters you will be able to learn the other without too much difficulty.

You can check out our article on the best websites for learning chinese characters here. But before you do that, first sign up to the waitlist for our new web app. We are making a new resource to make learning chinese characters easy and if you sign up to the waitlist now you will get free early access.

Till next time, VocabHacker