6 ms·

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

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.
    - 4cao 6y ago
      > Simplification is a many-to-many mapping. Technically you are correct but this is just pedantry. Of the 4 examples you listed, 3 are corner cases, and 1 is also a variant traditional character. You know way too much not to realize this (by the way, that's a compliment!), and that you couldn't come up with anything reasonably common like the 發/髮 → 发 pair (because there isn't anything comparable going the other way) indirectly proves the point I was making. Unless at a very advanced level, a person switching from traditional to simplified can simply afford to ignore any of these relatively rarely-encountered one-to-many mappings, whereas the same cannot be said about switching from simplified to traditional. It is then one extra thing to study if going one direction but not the other. That might be good to know for somebody who is actually making that decision, although in reality it's probably moot, since people will learn either one or the other first depending on their individual circumstances. > I'd be pretty shocked if any literate Chinese speaker in the PRC did not recognize that character. That might very well be true but is beside the point. The claim in the parent post was that somebody who only ever learned simplified characters would be able to read traditional characters "on the spot" having never seen them before, to which I provided this counterexample of a commonly-encountered traditional character that will not be recognized without context, unless the person is already familiar with it. All I'm saying is nobody is likely to figure out this character seeing it for the first time without context. (For the record, this applies both ways, just the example would have to be different.) > I'm fairly certain the overwhelming majority are due to automated conversions. But in that case it also says something that the software didn't handle the conversion well (implying that perhaps whoever wrote it didn't know about it), and that people posting this stuff also didn't correct the obvious mistake (suggesting they didn't know either). * You wrote a lot in response, and I generally don't disagree, I just don't see how most of it relates to my post. For the record, I'm not claiming it's difficult or easy going one way or another. In fact I was only pointing out the following 3 things: 1. If you only learned one set (whether simplified or traditional), you don't know the other automatically. 2. If people can read characters in context, they are likely just guessing - nothing wrong about it by the way, that's how people read in any language - but it doesn't mean they would really "know" the same characters in isolation. 3. Some common, unrelated traditional characters were merged to become the same simplified character. This is an extra layer of difficulty if you don't already know which these are (as you would if you learned the traditional characters first). (I concede it's also the case the other way, but in my opinion none of it is common enough to worry about at this level of granularity, so the burden is not comparable.) I'm getting the impression you're looking for something to disagree with among the things I wrote, and I'm sure you'll be able to find it but I'd rather what I wrote be helpful even at the cost of having to simplify things a bit, and thus not being rigorously correct. In other words, I'm trying to describe the forest, not the individual trees. My audience are the people who are looking at the forest from a distance: if someone is already in the forest, they either know what's inside or can look around on their own. That the forest insiders won't benefit from my description is to be expected. I hope you can recognize that.

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.
  - 4cao 6y ago
    > Simplification is a many-to-many mapping. Technically you are correct but this is just pedantry. Of the 4 examples you listed, 3 are corner cases, and 1 is also a variant traditional character. You know way too much not to realize this (by the way, that's a compliment!), and that you couldn't come up with anything reasonably common like the 發/髮 → 发 pair (because there isn't anything comparable going the other way) indirectly proves the point I was making. Unless at a very advanced level, a person switching from traditional to simplified can simply afford to ignore any of these relatively rarely-encountered one-to-many mappings, whereas the same cannot be said about switching from simplified to traditional. It is then one extra thing to study if going one direction but not the other. That might be good to know for somebody who is actually making that decision, although in reality it's probably moot, since people will learn either one or the other first depending on their individual circumstances. > I'd be pretty shocked if any literate Chinese speaker in the PRC did not recognize that character. That might very well be true but is beside the point. The claim in the parent post was that somebody who only ever learned simplified characters would be able to read traditional characters "on the spot" having never seen them before, to which I provided this counterexample of a commonly-encountered traditional character that will not be recognized without context, unless the person is already familiar with it. All I'm saying is nobody is likely to figure out this character seeing it for the first time without context. (For the record, this applies both ways, just the example would have to be different.) > I'm fairly certain the overwhelming majority are due to automated conversions. But in that case it also says something that the software didn't handle the conversion well (implying that perhaps whoever wrote it didn't know about it), and that people posting this stuff also didn't correct the obvious mistake (suggesting they didn't know either). * You wrote a lot in response, and I generally don't disagree, I just don't see how most of it relates to my post. For the record, I'm not claiming it's difficult or easy going one way or another. In fact I was only pointing out the following 3 things: 1. If you only learned one set (whether simplified or traditional), you don't know the other automatically. 2. If people can read characters in context, they are likely just guessing - nothing wrong about it by the way, that's how people read in any language - but it doesn't mean they would really "know" the same characters in isolation. 3. Some common, unrelated traditional characters were merged to become the same simplified character. This is an extra layer of difficulty if you don't already know which these are (as you would if you learned the traditional characters first). (I concede it's also the case the other way, but in my opinion none of it is common enough to worry about at this level of granularity, so the burden is not comparable.) I'm getting the impression you're looking for something to disagree with among the things I wrote, and I'm sure you'll be able to find it but I'd rather what I wrote be helpful even at the cost of having to simplify things a bit, and thus not being rigorously correct. In other words, I'm trying to describe the forest, not the individual trees. My audience are the people who are looking at the forest from a distance: if someone is already in the forest, they either know what's inside or can look around on their own. That the forest insiders won't benefit from my description is to be expected. I hope you can recognize that.