Traditional Chinese Vs Simplified Chinese Writing - What is the Difference and Where Are They Used?

There are two different forms of written Chinese: Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese. So are these two forms really that different? Why is there a difference? And where is each form used?

The history

Traditional Chinese script has evolved over many centuries. As characters became more complicated, people informally used shorthand forms to write certain characters. In 1958, mainland China's government sanctioned some of the existing shorthands and at the same time simplified other characters that did not have a shorthand yet. This marked the birth of simplified Chinese script. "Only" some 500 characters (out of thousands) were simplified; the rest of the characters are the same in traditional and simplified Chinese script.

Who uses what?

The People's Republic of China (mainland China) uses simplified script and this script was also adopted by Singapore. Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan use traditional characters. Internationally, traditional script has long been more frequently used by overseas Chinese.

Language lessons outside of China used to teach almost only traditional script until the 1980′s. Until 1979, China was closed, so most Chinese teachers originated from Taiwan. With China's emergence, simplified Chinese has become much more common.

Why not just one writing method?

My guess is that this has a lot to do with heritage, pride and national identity. As simplified Chinese was introduced by the communist party of China, it would be unlikely that Taiwan would adopt this script. Taiwanese will point out that the traditional characters are 'ideographs' which are like stylized pictures and easier to remember. A mainland Chinese might counter that it's really easier not to have to remember so many strokes. Both have a valid point.

Is it possible read and write traditional Chinese characters if you learnt simplified, and vice versa?

I am personally learning Mandarin based on the simplified script, and must say that it is not all that difficult to get the gist of a traditional text if you can read simplified Chinese characters. You need to learn a number of extra characters, and that's about it. Most Chinese, be them in Hong Kong, China, or Taiwan, will be able to handle texts in the other script to some extent without formal teaching, though they will be more familiar with the script that they were taught in school and may not be able to write the other script. Since a lot of characters have remained the same between the two scripts, it becomes a matter of filling in the blanks.

While most simplified characters have a direct traditional equivalent, it is not exactly a one-to-one translation, i.e. there are exceptions, for example where several traditional characters are represented by one simplified character. So while there are computer programs that convert between traditional and simplified texts, they would need to be checked by a human afterwards.

A Dutchman currently living in Singapore, Guus has so far studied 7 languages (English, German, French, Spanish, Ancient Greek, Latin and Mandarin). He is passionate about travel, culture, languages and learning.

He founded Yago Singapore, a company that brings together the best offerings of several Singapore language schools on one website.

Guus regularly shares his insights about language learning on his blog: http://blog.yago.sg

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