Should I Learn Traditional Chinese or Simplified Chinese | Linus the Taiwanese
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 พ.ค. 2024
- Should I Learn Traditional Chinese or Simplified Chinese | Linus the Taiwanese
#Mandarin #Chinese #Traditional #Simplified #beginner #language #learning
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In my experience, the answer is to learn both. It’s actually a lot easier than you would think. Every time you learn a character in one script, learn it in the other. Then write in Chinese everyday. I like writing letters, journal entries, daily to-do lists etc.. Between using spaced repetition software like anki & daily writing it’s actually fairly easy to read & write in both scripts in a fairly short amount of time(2 years ish) Also your ability to remember characters & visualize them improves SUBSTANTIALLY with practice. Once you have a few hundred characters, learning the next 7,000 or so is waaayyy easier. I also bought myself a 康熙字典 and read it for fun lol. That said, you don’t even have to learn that many characters if you don’t want to. I just like to
You’re doing good!!!
Thank you for the informative video!😊😊😊
Thank you so much for sharing
Hope you make more videos ❤
Thank you so much! Will do👌🏻
Good answers to questions that were on my mind for a while!
Thank you. Glad that it helps 😇
Thanks for the information👍🏻👍🏻
My pleasure 😄
I highly recommend learning bopomofo first, then pinyin. From the non-native Chinese speaker perspective, you’ll be far less prone to pronounce the letters as you are used to them being pronounced. For example, “chi” and “qi” would be the same pronunciation in English, but are two subtly yet distinctly different sounds in Chinese, which is accurately captured by zhuyin. English speakers/speakers of languages that use Roman letters will always be at a disadvantage due to this bias.
How often do you hear seasoned mandarin learners still pronouncing “qu” as “choo”? Zhuyin learners wouldn’t be tempted to pronounce it that way.
Good point!!!👍🏻😆
Absolutely pointless statement!
Follow the logic here:
When you learn either one system or another you must use audio records or listen to a teacher to realize and practice how exactly the language sounds.
What you do, you just compare those who do use audio to those who do not use audio but just read latin letters how they know them from their languages. According to that logic, those who don't use audio have absolutely no chance to know how BoPoMoFo characters should be pronounced.😂
The Pinyin system started in the 1950s in China. Zhuyin was in use prior to then. So the pronunciations of Pinyin and Zhuyin are actually the same. The only difference is the symbol. The Zhuyin use the original Zhuyin symbols, but the Pinyin was created by using the English alphabet then. That's why sometimes Pinyin seems to be confusing if you know the pronunciations of the traditional Zhuyin 16 vowels.
@@_yogahelps_ one thing to mention is that using Pinyin is something that a western person (which I am) is familiar with, whereas any other characters would make me use latin letters anyway to explain their pronunciation on paper. So it's gonna be a triple link system which is ineffective and time consuming.
So, yeah, if you learn Hanzi at school with a real life teacher maybe(!) it's a good idea to use a non-pinyin system; but if you learn it by yourself, my answer would be no way, Pinyin only 😄
Thank you 😊
No problem😉
I know I watched it already, but thank you for reassuring me about my internal "pinyin vs zhuyin" debate. I'm used to pinyin, to be honest. and i know it kinda sounds selfish, but making this switch would be too much for me.
Thank you for your feedback. I don’t think it is selfish to say that cuz it does take time to learn a brand-new system. As long as it doesn’t affect your learning and save you more time, then it is totally fine 😆
I learn traditional Chinese for a while when I was a kid. Even though it was very short while, but that gives me the foundation and logic for when I learn simplified Chinese yeeears later when I am adult now. Every now and then I still look up to the traditional hanzi when studying new word. Sometimes, it gives me a clearer picture of the writing root idea as it is closer to pictograph, and therefore help me to memorize the hanzi drawing more easily.
Thank you for your sharing 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻😇
Thank you!
İ actually am learning traditional, but since İ'm learning in a course with like a dozen other student, there have been some awkward moments where other students were wondering about the characters İ typed in.
We all now have gotten used to the situation though.
Btw, the teacher doesn't mind at all her students using different characters.
Thank you!! Even though the teacher doesn’t mind when u guys use different characters, u still have to stick to what u really want to learn. U can do it! Cheers!
很好的presentation，保持住
谢谢你的支持与鼓励！ ！
Im learning traditional since my girlfriend is from Taiwan. I use pinyin to traditonal keyboard though which makes it easier. Writing the characters by hand is out of the question though haha!
🤣🤣🤣
I grew up learning simplied chinese, all it took for me to learn traditional chinese was reading a couple of wuxia novels in middle school.
I didn’t read any wuxia novel. I watched a lot of wuxia series though 😆
I grew up in mainland China. I learned simplified Chinese at school. But I can read most traditional Chinese without any problem.
That’s nice!!!
So do I, I attended school in Singapore and learning simplified Chinese characters, and totally have no difficulty with traditional Chinese Words. When reading, I don’t even notice if it’s simplified or traditional.
Sounds like you like KTV!
Traditional First (better structured)
Simple can create new characters.
There is advantages to both as well.
Good way of thinking, but simplified characters are not really new characters. They are just simplified traditional characters.
Interesting video and I wonder if Taiwanese people can understand Hong Kong traditional Chinese characters characters between the two are different common ones. This is easily seen on a chat room between a Taiwanese flight attendant and a Hong konger flight attendant on Cathay Pacific
Even though there are still some characters written differently, we can still understand each other mostly😆
This is usually refered to as 异体字/Variant character, because different regions maintain their own standard of the Characters. Most characters are the same or only have very tiny differences and are even ignored when encoding in computers (sharing the same unicode), with the rest being easy to guess. (Mainland China also maintains a standard for traditional Chinese writing for acadamic reasons.) The difference in writing of the same character in different regions (or sometimes even in the same region) are 异体字 of each other, depending on which one is considered 正字 (the orthodox variant) of that region. Not sure about the other dictionaries, but the official dictionary in mainland China usually list both the tradional Chinese version and frequently found variant versions. This actually goes beyond just Chinese, you'll find similar yet different writing for the same Chinese character in Kanji(Japanese) and Hanja(Korean) as well.
I learned using Wade-Giles romanization. (I’m old)
It’s okay 😆😆
Y’all may not know this, but bopofomo was used on mainland China until 1956 and it still appears in some dictionaries to this day. I also dislike how u only put 繁 on Taiwan, because there are many temples and cultural areas in mainland china where it helps to know traditional
Good point 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Linus can you memorise the whole poem of qian zi wen in traditional Chinese? If you can how did you do it, please tell???
In fact, I can’t😅 Sorry to let you down😫
when we use mobile and PC to communicate, I found when writing, i forgot some Chinese character's figure and can not write them without refer to my PC or mobile phone, because your brain found you almost never writing them, so they are fading away from your memory.
So true👍🏻
I know the example of 东 vs 東 (木 + 日) ... traditional is easier to interpret but harder to write.
Yeah u r right 😆
You should learn oracle bone script 😂
Yeah totally 🤣🤣🤣
I would add to your video: if you have a child and want them to learn traditional Chinese characters, you do NEED TO LEARN ZHUYIN, because virtually all children’s books and learning materials which use traditional characters have bopomofo subtitles, not pinyin. If you want to read Chinese stories to them or want to help them Learn traditional characters, then you will want to learn zhuyin too! This situation particularly applies to the many 混血兒 children in Taiwan and abroad.
As a westener, I learned Traditional because I prefer Taiwan and am never planning to go to China. That said I actually found it easier. Simplified is easier to write, I admit; it's faster. But traditional is easier to remember I think, it's less abstract once you realize Hanzi are mostly made up of components.
Regarding the IME system, I would recommend both. Pinyin is faster and more convenient (especially since most of us are used to a QWERTY keyboard layout, you know where the letters are). That said, Zhuyin (BoPoMoFo) is a lot better if you want to learn the pronounciation. Standard Pinyin doesn't let you type (well, 地球拼音 does, but that's not standard). However Zhuyin lets you (and depending on the computer system, maybe even requires you to also enter the tone. Having the tone part of the spelling helps a lot in remembering the tone.
Pinyin can be confusing too because of it's arbitrary rules (for example v is not always ü, only sometimes)
If you're really wanting to engage with Taiwanese society I recommend getting familiar with some characters used in zhuyin though because sometimes people will use them instead of the hanzi. I cannot quite tell if it's fashion or if it's just people mistyping but I have seem ㄜ and ㄟ a lot
I understand you prefer Taiwan but if you don't plan to live there traditional Chinese is pretty useless in my opinion
@@heavenlypath1065 well it's also used in HK (for now) and Macau (from what I hear), as well as a few Chinatowns in the west. Japanese also has more in common with traditional Chinese than simplified (shinjitai exist, but they're not always the same as mainland China's simplification). I hear mainland China also still uses it for some select few things (calligraphy, dramas set in the past, namesigns of some shops).
Realistically it makes very little difference when talking to native people from either area, as most people can tell what's what in the opposite script it seems.
@@m.2383 Again like I said if you don't plan on living in these countries there's really no point learning traditional.
Learning traditional to help learn Japanese is a stretch and can only take you so far. I would never depend on that idea and rather learn the language itself ( Just me personally )
Also in the west it's mainly simplified not traditional most Chinese are from mainland Bro.
Learn both.
Traditional for it's elegance. Plus calligraphy and signage just looks weird in Simplified form.
Simplified for it's ease of writing, esp when taking notes. And much of the Chinese world uses simplified too.
Zhuyin's precision makes it easier to type than QWERTY Pinyin, but the '9 button inputs' for Pinyin is the fastest input type overall.
👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Will knowing traditional Chinese make it easier to learn simplified Chinese?
because me and all other Taiwanese I know are able to read simplified chinese, but I just heard there are some people from china cannot understand traditional chinese
I always thought that is just a instinct, because we never learn simplified chinese and it just looks similar so you can guess the words according to the context
It takes some getting used to, but it's not as hard as people say. I'm no native, but while learning I've found a lot of content in traditional and it's just a matter of checking or guessing from context.
I'm from HK, so I have always learnt traditional Chinese characters straight from the beginning. Funnily, I can read most simplified characters, but can only write a handful of them. I still haven't figured out what happened, maybe it's your point about their similar structures. Or maybe it's me reading online novels in simplified characters which trained my brain. (But then, how did I manage to read them in the first place? 😕)
when i type in pinyin it comes out wrong a lot of the time :( bopomofo looks cool as well lol
Did you type in tones with Pinyin? Or you just typed in Pinyin?
Traditional characters are the best !
😆😆😆
I think you missed one important point, all ancient Chinese literatures and writings were written in traditional characters. It adds an additional level of difficulty to the learning process.
So which one do u suggest to learn?
@@LinustheTaiwanese Definitely traditional Chinese. Simplified Chinese renders learning ancient Chinese literatures moot.
I love you brother. Do you teach Chinese lessons!
Yes I do😆
I’m gonna be a devil’s advocate here: if you simplify existing characters, it makes it easier to form more complex characters down the line by combining different characters together while minimizing the number of strokes. So it leaves more room for future expansion.
That seems like it makes sense but, it doesn’t. Mandarin already has ample words (and characters) to describe every aspect of modern life; the only possible application for what you’re saying would be for never-before-heard-of technological advances and, I’m afraid even that is already covered. Similar to the German “Flugzeug” (airplane, literally ‘fly-thing’), Mandarin is already able to describe new things with pre-existing words, as we see in 电脑 (computer, literally ‘electric-brain’). Although it’s possible to create/invent new characters, there simply isn’t a need for them. Further, the entire point of simplifying the characters was to simplify them; not to enable even greater complexity. No disrespect intended with my disagreement but the point that you made relies on an unrealistic/non-existent hypothetical. There is already an ability to create new words without creating new characters.
Sorry, the edit button is broken. Flugzeug is “fly-machine”, not “fly thing”. Also, diannao in my comment is in simplified characters which is a little weird given my point. 🤷♂
Silly question. But, as someone who knows Japanese, would be better/ easy for me to learn the traditional or simplified Chinese? And is there any good app for traditional Chinese learners?
I learnt Japanese and Simplified Chinese. And really it doesn't matter matter imo since Japan and China both simplified the same way, but Japan didn't simplify as many characters. If you already know Japanese, chances are you you'll do good in either since simplifiing a character a traditional character and reading it is super easy, and likewise do the reverse is easy enough. I can read (most) traditional even though I don't practice it because of Japanese.
I would still say go with simplified because it's more useful, but I'm baised towards China even though their government is garbage, so take it with a grain of salt.
Thank you for your answer. It helps me a lot ☺@@Simon-cj5ey
I’d still say it depends on your purpose and where you want to spend more time in the future. Theoretically, neither of them would be too difficult for u if you can write Japanese. For learning traditional Chinese characters, here is for your reference:
www.china-admissions.com/blog/7-best-apps-to-learn-traditional-chinese-%E7%B9%81%E9%AB%94%E5%AD%97-%E6%AD%A3%E9%AB%94%E5%AD%97/
@@LinustheTaiwanese thank you so much! I'd decided to start from traditional Chinese as I usually watch more Taiwanese series, so it will be perfect 🥰💗
@@in_rose_coffeelover No problem! You can do it. Wish you all the best. :)))
BOTH!
👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
traditional chinese is the superset, and simplified chinese is its subset
so if you learn simplified chinese only you will miss part of the knowledge
Good point👍🏻
aint there a bit of a grammar difference between tawianese mandarin and mainland mandarin ?
Luckily, there isn't ：））
非常好的講解，唯一的缺點就是不是中文
因為這是要給剛要開始學中文的外國學生看的 所以用英文😊
@@diydylana3151 Proud of you :))
No problem 😉
已经会中文的话，理解另一种书写系统很轻松
I think if you don't want to learn Japanese later, then learn easier one.
🤣🤣🤣👌🏻
When a Chinese guy and taiwanese guy try to make a conversation can they understand each other or not?
Of course they can😁
Easy
Tradional and simplified version are the writing system, the language is the same. Besides, it's easy to understand a different writing system with the help of context and some knowledge of caligraphy (which is what some simplified characters are based of).
To answer this question, it depends heavily on the level of application. If you learn TC, you're limiting yourself to a small pool.
Good point 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
You should learn Traditional Chinese becoz it has a lot of advantages over Simplified Han. It increases brain functioning and helps communicate in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Despite its harder than simplified.
Apart from the increased number of strokes, saying it's ''harder'' is wrong, simplified takes out many key elements that could be used to guess the meaning of the character and traditional characters actually tell a story of their building parts, but with simplified it's mostly just stale memorization but with traditional it can be fun and intuitive.
Simplification was made to disconnect the chinese people from the past, not to increase literacy or make it easier to write, disconnection was the ultimate goal.
I cannot guarantee whether traditional Chinese is more helpful to brain functioning, but traditional Chinese is indeed more complete and logical than simplified Chinese since simplified Chinese is just modified from traditional Chinese by some character experts within years, but the evolution through history. It’s also very interesting for Steve to say that simplified Chinese disconnects people from the past. It might not be correct, but it’s really a good way to think how governments can do to control the people and force them to think differently.
@@LinustheTaiwanese Thank you for replying and it actually is correct in a way, while the initial goal of simplification by the CCP was actually to make it somewhat simple, simply, it needed some reform (Just ask the Japanese or even the Kuomintang like 20 years prior to the CCP's simplification.), but really it was all because Mao hated the Chinese character system and wanted to overall turn it into pinyin, but that luckily didn't happen, instead the four olds came and at that point they were really aiming at destroying history, disconnecting people from the part and overall destroying Chinese culture, one of these aspects was the simplification, while initially it was supposed to be a rational simplification, it soon turned into somewhat rational but still a lot of nonsensical simplification as part of the four olds, so it can pretty much be said to be aimed at disconnecting people from their past, literally like in 1984's Oceania.
There is an added benefit of being able to partially understand some written Japanese as well since they use the traditional characters
@@ss_super_steve This is not true in the slightest. People who claim that simplified Chinese is "destroying" culture are deeply unserious people ignorant of Chinese culture. Just a few examples: the 伤 from 傷->伤 appears in the calligraphy of Jin Dynasty poet 王羲之, the 杨 from 楊->杨 is used by Ming Dynasty poet 文微明, the 阳 from 陽->阳 is used by 徐渭 of the Ming Dynasty. Lots of simplified characters are actually the cursive calligraphic variants of traditional characters.
Learn Cantonese if you want to read classical literature because it is closer to middle Chinese unlike... Mandarin
What is the relevancy between being able to read classical literature and being to able to speak Cantonese? Just like Latin, no one speaks Latin nowadays, but scholars can still read them.
Very interesting lesson! In the opportunity, I wish that Jesus, the Name above all names (Phillipians 2), bless you, and may you feed from His Word and Salvation!
非常有趣的課！在這個機會中，我希望耶穌，這個高於一切名字的名字（腓立比書2），祝福你，願你從他的話語和救恩中餵養！
感謝你🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
it’s pretty easy to choose,just like why we learn English , because USA is the superpower and no 1 in the world. We prefer American English rather than British English. Same rule apply to learning Chinese.
Good point 👍🏻
There are lots of mistakes in this video. Most of the simplified Chinese Characters were not new. They existed as one Chinese character may have many different versions in ancient times. 80% of the simplified Chinese Characters were picked from those ancient variants, mostly from cursive script [草书], which is another version of the Traditional Chinese characters.
e.g. "爱" can be traced back to Songndynasty• We can found "爱” in the
artwork of Zhao Mengkui[赵孟奎], a
well-known calligrapher of the Song Dynasty.
Additionally, when people in Taiwan and Hong Kong need to write something really fast, they tend to scribble and turn a complicated character into a simpler version( I.e , 3 strokes into a line). So simplistic Chinese already existed and used by Taiwanese and Hong Kongner in the first place, not to mention most Taiwanese and Hong Kongners were migrants from Chinese mainland, therefore still need to communicate across different regions.
If you know Chinese well enough, you will read both version interchangeably, if you just started to learn Chinese, learning traditional Chinese does not make it more memorable as traditional Chinese are combinations of smaller characters so you would need to start to learn Chinese characters regardless, which are just simplified Chinese.
What are the mistakes in this video?
@@LinustheTaiwanese 还有就是比如说表示云朵的“云/雲”，云是本字，但古时因动词“云”的原因，分化出了“雲”专用于这种天气现象。但是如今动词意义不再常用，于是简化时选择恢复本义
Shinjitai is the best
Taiwan should switch
Ok
Pinyin with traditional characters
Sounds like a perfect match😆
In this MODERN AGE, It needn't to learn TRADITIONAL CHARACTER STYLE of learning or writing CHINESE.
You must learn PINYIN Or ZHUYIN. It's EASY ENOUGH.
Then there is not much you can read when u r here🙂
You' ll never learn too much. 🙂
Totally 👍🏻
Please restore traditional chinese characters in mainland china.
There is nothing I can do 😅😅🤣
@@LinustheTaiwanese lolol
This comment is way too funny than it should be
学汉语已经够难了，所以多学一套注音/拼音/标音系统也没有增加太大的工作量
确实，除非真的特别特别爱注音，不然用拼音学发音对外国人来说真的容易太多了。
ZHUYIN. It's EASY ENOUGH.
Theoretically, pinyin is easier for foreigners 🥸
@@LinustheTaiwanese But it ain't necessary that every foreigner knows LATIN SCRIPT LANGUAGE.
Like who?
马来西亚也是用简化汉字吧？
我刚刚查一下，马来西亚是从1981年开始使用简体字跟拼音的：））
@@LinustheTaiwanese 谢谢😆
No biggie😁
？？pinyin 也是bopomofo好吗？We call "b" bo,"p" po and so on.
😊
Taiwanese gigachad
🤣🤣🤣
Simple. Go with what 1.3 billion people are using
👍🏻
Incorrect translation
繁體字 = complicated characters
Not traditional characters
The word 繁 has got nothing to do with traditional
If you did some studies related to history and linguistics before you made this statement, you would know that these two words, 繁體字 and “traditional Chinese”, evolved separately in their own languages and cultures, and became counterparts accidentally. And it wasn’t even me who decided it. Sometimes I am just jealous of those people who can be ignorant and confident at the same time🙂
With enough exposure and practice, you can do both. Choose one and stick to it. If you dive into the world of hanzi, you'll find the Simplified a mess. However the typeface of so called Traditional characters used in Taiwan is also a mess. The REAL traditional hanzi is about to be discovered by yourself.
“The Real traditional Chinese?” I am not so sure what you really want to express.
@@LinustheTaiwanese Easy, characters are correct both in sound and shape. 爲 rather than 為, 臺灣 rather than 台灣 for 台 and 臺 are toltally diffrent two characters that have diffrent pronunciation. Many examples remain but as long as people are using and speaking they are in dominant of what is right or wrong. Personally I find the disputes of simplified and tranditional characters is nonsense. No side is perfect and argueing is often politicalized. As I put before, choose one and stick to it. After acquiring certificate people should have right to write what ever s/he want write!
Dumb foolish writing system..., she said.
🤣🤣🤣
毫无疑问应该学简体中文，简体中文才是中华民族的正统语言
Are you a good person? Ever lied stolen or committed adultery. All humans have sin and we need a savior that's why God in his love sent his son Jesus to die on the cross for our sins and when we believe in him and turn away from sin we attain eternal life. Praying for China and Taiwan.
how about allah
traditional will eventually phased out just like how ancient chinese characters in the past. choosing traditional and simplified is like u wanna buy old phone or new one. I'd rather choose new, not to mention tens of thousands of new characters being created every year all using simplified characters.
You must be an expert of Chinese character history. Thanks for sharing your thoughts🙏🏻
婉蜿还是学英语或日语吧，那是你们爹爹妈妈的语言，汉语跟婉蜿无关。汉语是中国人的语言。
你好可憐，希望你盡快找到人生的意義，加油👏🏻
he said in chinese 😂😂😂😂😂