Should you learn simplified or traditional characters?
Anyone who wants to learn Chinese will have to take into consideration the question of whether to learn simplified characters or traditional characters. Unfortunately, because the “simplified or traditional” dilemma usually arises at the earliest stages of a new Chinese learner’s journey into learning Chinese language, decisions are often made hastily and without full awareness of the pros and cons of both systems.
The whole topic of traditional characters vs. simplified characters a controversial one. Many Chinese learners seem to have personal biases for one system or the other, and forums on the topic of Chinese language are often rife with debate on the subject. Although I personally began studying Chinese by learning simplified characters, I’ve studied many of their traditional counterparts during the course of my classical Chinese studies. I feel like I have a fairly unbiased appreciation for both systems, traditional and simplified, and the goal of this article is to inform you as to the reasons for learning one system or the other.
When you make the decision between simplified and traditional characters, it will be important to consider your reasons and motivations for learning Chinese. For more on this, see my article, “Why are YOU learning Chinese?” This will help you evaluate which character system, simplified or traditional, is right for your situation.
Okay, let’s take a look at some of the reasons why someone who is learning Chinese might opt to learn traditional characters:
1) Traditional characters are used in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macao. This, on its own, can be enough of a reason to sway a Chinese learner toward learning traditional characters, especially if they plan to spend time in these places.
2) Traditional characters represent Chinese cultural history to a greater degree than do simplified characters. This is very true. Most Chinese characters have a story behind them and, in the simplification process, many simplified characters have lost culturally significant elements. For example, let’s examine the character ‘發 / 发’ (traditional / simplified [pinyin: fā]). In the traditional character, we find the radical ‘弓’ (gōng) which is a pictograph of a bow. This is significant to the original meaning of 發 / 发, which is ‘to shoot’ or ‘to launch’. If you are a cultural ‘purist’ you many feel like you’re missing out on something by studying simplified characters. It is also arguable that preserving such elements makes memorizing characters easier, as original pictographic representations are preserved.
3) In some cases, traditional characters with different meanings entirely have been simplified down to the same simplified character. Let’s look again at the simplified character ‘发.’ In addition to having the same meaning as the previously mentioned traditional character ‘發’, ‘发’ also represents the simplified version of ‘髮,’ which means “hair” and is not at all related to shooting or launching. Therefore, Chinese learners who learn traditional characters will sometimes be able to differentiate between the meanings of two characters simply by looking at them, whereas people who learn simplified characters have to rely on context.
4) Many texts are only available in traditional character editions. Although a lot of texts from before the PRC’s simplification of Chinese characters in the 1950’s and 60s have been reproduced using simplified characters, vast amounts of literature from China’s past are not available in simplified format.
There are other reasons you may want to learn traditional characters over simplified characters. But let’s move on now and look at some reasons why a Chinese learner might want to study simplified characters:
1) Simplified characters are easier to learn for the beginner. Many Chinese language beginners are intimidated by traditional characters. Before you’ve gotten used to learning Chinese characters, characters with a lot of strokes can be frustrating to memorize, and the decreased number of strokes in simplified Chinese can seem like a good solution.
I personally think that once you have gotten used to learning Chinese characters, learning traditional characters is not that much harder than learning simplified ones. And, as mentioned above, there may be some aspects of traditional characters that make them easier to recognize.
2) I do, however, think that learning how to WRITE simplified characters is easier than learning how to write traditional characters. Because typing Chinese characters on a computer is so easy, this may not be an issue unless you specifically want to be able to hand-write characters.
3) Writing speed is increased when writing simplified characters. This is true. But rarely will you actually have to handwrite out anything of significant length when computers are always an arm’s reach away (other than for your Chinese class!)
4) Simplified characters are used in mainland China. This is a very good reason to be familiar with simplified characters. If you want to go to mainland China, it will be easier to get around if you can recognize simplified characters.
I personally think the best thing to do is to learn BOTH traditional AND simplified characters. I know that this may sound excessive, especially to beginning learners of Chinese, but the truth is, once you’re brain has gotten used to the process of learning characters, it’s much easier to pick up new ones. So, once you have a foundation in one system, simplified OR traditional, learning the other system will be easier than when learning the characters the first time around. And the advantages of learning both traditional and simplified characters are many.
So if you’re stressing out about which system to begin with, relax. Simply pick whichever system you feel is right for you now, knowing that you may want to learn the other system sometime down the road. The bottom line is, regardless of whether you start by learning traditional characters or simplified characters, learning Chinese is a fun and enriching experience.
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