Sun 30 Jul 2006
Learning Traditional and Simplified characters
Posted by 馬先生 under Language
I found an interesting documentary regarding the influences and difficulties of learning traditional and simplified characters in society. I found it quite impressive that an American (Brian) goes to Australia for 4 years to work and learn to speak Cantonese; then went to Hong Kong 1 year ago to study Chinese characters. All in all, Brian’s Cantonese is quite excellent.
| Video 1: 07:59min | Video 2: 07:59min | Video 3: 06:38min |
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Hong Kong
February 22nd, 2007 at 2:30 am
For someone used to the traditional characters, what’s the impression when confronted with the simplified ones?
March 14th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
I found Simplified Characters to be a bit harder to learn, mostly because they often looked too simular. I like the style of traditional Characters and continue to study them. I learned how to speak Cantonese proficiently before begining to study how to read and write.
September 17th, 2008 at 6:40 am
Simplified characters were created with Mandarin in mind, so some of the radical choice was based on how they are pronounced in Mandarin.
A large number of simplified characters have been in use before they were standardised and these simplifications coincide with the way they were simplified in Japan, a small number of them are used in Taiwan and Hong Kong (differ from standard traditional)
Simplified characters in mainland China have less variants too. When trying to read some traditional texts from Taiwan, Hong Kong, I have to deal with some variants, my ABC dictionary says, they are Japanese variants.
The rest is just a habit or preference, if you focus on simplified, then traditional become difficult.
For practical reasons, I choose simplified, as the majority of Chinese use it. It’s also spreading in overseas Chinese communities.