7 ms·

Chinese also has the additional problem that character simplification in the PRC broke quite a few pronunciation cues. With 廣, you can correctly guess it'll so

Chinese also has the additional problem that character simplification in the PRC broke quite a few pronunciation cues. With 廣, you can correctly guess it'll sound similar to 黄. Simplified to 广, you have no idea.

dwohnitmok 6y ago
It's a wash. It broke some and restored others, often by following variant characters already in use, e.g. 闆, which has no pronunciation similarity to 品, became 板 (following cues of e.g. 版). Chinese hasn't had consistent phonetic components for a long long long time.
- edwinyzh 6y ago
  闆 doeshas no pronunciation similarity to 品，in ancient Chinese, you can find that with Cantonese which is close to the official languages in some ancient times.
PikachuEXE 6y ago
That's Simplified Chinese And I recommend people willing to learn Chinese characters to learn Traditional Chinese to be less confused and easier to remember on the long run.
- mrslave 6y ago
  The Chinese I have asked who learnt Simplified Chinese characters in school attest to being able to read Traditional Chinese characters with very little additional effort; or even just on the spot (say, when shopping or dining). Those who learnt Traditional Chinese characters seem to have a harder time going in the other direction. (No studies to cite; I have asked a good 30+ people at work, social circles, etc. over the years.)
  - 4cao 6y ago
    Even if you completely obstruct some characters from view, people will still be able to figure out the meaning from context but that doesn't necessarily mean they learned the other variant. And on top of that, they might be reluctant to admit it. If you really wanted to know, you'd have to show them the characters in isolation. Try for example 發. I bet it's not going to be so straightforward. In any case, most people don't really get to have the choice but if you're planning to learn both, going with traditional characters first is easier because the simplification is a many-to-one mapping: if you've only known simplified, you won't be aware there are supposed to be different characters in place of the same one you're familiar with. In other words, you don't only have to learn something new but also unlearn what you know and got used to, and the latter part is always more difficult. For instance (and to stay within the same example), both 發 and 髮, unrelated to each other, were simplified to the same 发. A person who only knows simplified is likely to incorrectly write *頭發 for 'hair' (instead of the correct 頭髮), and there are 2.5M Google hits for this keyword (to be fair, many probably due to the automated conversion, and some might be an intentional pun).
    - dwohnitmok 6y ago
      > the simplification is a many-to-one mapping Simplification is a many-to-many mapping. There are many characters that were either merged in the process of standardizing traditional Chinese characters or have multiple meanings which are split by standard simplified Chinese. Here's a very small sample of a bunch of Traditional -> Simplified examples. 乾 -> 乾 (qian2)、干 (gan1) (干 is itself a merger of multiple traditional characters) 夥 -> 夥 (huo3)、伙 (huo3) 兒 -> 儿 (er2)、兒 (ni2) 祇 -> 祇 (qi2)、只 (zhi3) (只 is also itself a merger of multiple traditional characters) > Try for example 發. I bet it's not going to be so straightforward. I'd be pretty shocked if any literate Chinese speaker in the PRC did not recognize that character. I think in general you're overestimating the difficulty of learning traditional characters when educated in a system using solely simplified characters. PRC undergraduate courses will sometimes just flat-out assume knowledge of traditional characters. Indeed I have a textbook from a history of Chinese medicine class that's entirely in traditional characters. The professor (not unreasonably) just assumed we all already knew traditional characters or would pick it up in a week or two. All subsequent course material (e.g. test materials) was also in traditional characters, although we were allowed to write in simplified characters (and I think everyone in the class did so). I'm sure there's some corner cases you could use to stump people, but PRC kids consume quite a lot of traditional Chinese material even if they're not formally taught it in school. It's more mentally taxing than just reading simplified characters, but it's still fairly straightforward. In general it's pretty easy to pick up either character set if you're a fluent reader in the other, at least for reading. Learning how to handwrite both sets is trickier and probably requires dedicated training, but even then only on the order of weeks or at most months. > (to be fair, many probably due to the automated conversion, and some might be an intentional pun) I'm fairly certain the overwhelming majority are due to automated conversions.

dwohnitmok 6y ago

It's a wash. It broke some and restored others, often by following variant characters already in use, e.g. 闆, which has no pronunciation similarity to 品, became 板 (following cues of e.g. 版). Chinese hasn't had consistent phonetic components for a long long long time.

edwinyzh 6y ago
闆 doeshas no pronunciation similarity to 品，in ancient Chinese, you can find that with Cantonese which is close to the official languages in some ancient times.

PikachuEXE 6y ago

That's Simplified Chinese And I recommend people willing to learn Chinese characters to learn Traditional Chinese to be less confused and easier to remember on the long run.

mrslave 6y ago
The Chinese I have asked who learnt Simplified Chinese characters in school attest to being able to read Traditional Chinese characters with very little additional effort; or even just on the spot (say, when shopping or dining). Those who learnt Traditional Chinese characters seem to have a harder time going in the other direction. (No studies to cite; I have asked a good 30+ people at work, social circles, etc. over the years.)
- 4cao 6y ago
  Even if you completely obstruct some characters from view, people will still be able to figure out the meaning from context but that doesn't necessarily mean they learned the other variant. And on top of that, they might be reluctant to admit it. If you really wanted to know, you'd have to show them the characters in isolation. Try for example 發. I bet it's not going to be so straightforward. In any case, most people don't really get to have the choice but if you're planning to learn both, going with traditional characters first is easier because the simplification is a many-to-one mapping: if you've only known simplified, you won't be aware there are supposed to be different characters in place of the same one you're familiar with. In other words, you don't only have to learn something new but also unlearn what you know and got used to, and the latter part is always more difficult. For instance (and to stay within the same example), both 發 and 髮, unrelated to each other, were simplified to the same 发. A person who only knows simplified is likely to incorrectly write *頭發 for 'hair' (instead of the correct 頭髮), and there are 2.5M Google hits for this keyword (to be fair, many probably due to the automated conversion, and some might be an intentional pun).
  - dwohnitmok 6y ago
    > the simplification is a many-to-one mapping Simplification is a many-to-many mapping. There are many characters that were either merged in the process of standardizing traditional Chinese characters or have multiple meanings which are split by standard simplified Chinese. Here's a very small sample of a bunch of Traditional -> Simplified examples. 乾 -> 乾 (qian2)、干 (gan1) (干 is itself a merger of multiple traditional characters) 夥 -> 夥 (huo3)、伙 (huo3) 兒 -> 儿 (er2)、兒 (ni2) 祇 -> 祇 (qi2)、只 (zhi3) (只 is also itself a merger of multiple traditional characters) > Try for example 發. I bet it's not going to be so straightforward. I'd be pretty shocked if any literate Chinese speaker in the PRC did not recognize that character. I think in general you're overestimating the difficulty of learning traditional characters when educated in a system using solely simplified characters. PRC undergraduate courses will sometimes just flat-out assume knowledge of traditional characters. Indeed I have a textbook from a history of Chinese medicine class that's entirely in traditional characters. The professor (not unreasonably) just assumed we all already knew traditional characters or would pick it up in a week or two. All subsequent course material (e.g. test materials) was also in traditional characters, although we were allowed to write in simplified characters (and I think everyone in the class did so). I'm sure there's some corner cases you could use to stump people, but PRC kids consume quite a lot of traditional Chinese material even if they're not formally taught it in school. It's more mentally taxing than just reading simplified characters, but it's still fairly straightforward. In general it's pretty easy to pick up either character set if you're a fluent reader in the other, at least for reading. Learning how to handwrite both sets is trickier and probably requires dedicated training, but even then only on the order of weeks or at most months. > (to be fair, many probably due to the automated conversion, and some might be an intentional pun) I'm fairly certain the overwhelming majority are due to automated conversions.