>Don’t bother with writing (which interestingly is much harder than typing on a pinyin keyboard), traditional Chinese (there are tools which convert back and fo

>Don’t bother with writing (which interestingly is much harder than typing on a pinyin keyboard), traditional Chinese (there are tools which convert back and forth between the two of you need I personally find traditional Chinese characters easier to learn to read than simplified characters. Simplified characters are definitely much easier to write but that's not very useful in modern times. Plus learning traditional Chinese characters helps with Japanese. The reason that traditional Chinese characters are easier for me to learn is that it keeps components that hints toward the meaning that are left out of the simplified version. For example, hear is 聽 (traditional) and 听 (simplified). The traditional character has 耳 which means ear, the new simplified character has 口 (mouth) and 斤 (axe). That's not necessarily the best example since some of the other components of the traditional character are a bit weird in a character related to hearing but I do feel that it's easier to derive the meaning from the traditional character. Likewise, I prefer 愛 (love) to have the heart component 心.