Is Simplified Chinese the same as traditional Chinese?

Today, there are two different written forms of Chinese: Traditional and Simplified. Traditional Chinese preserves the orthodox characters that have been used for thousands of years. As its name suggests, Simplified Chinese consists of simplified versions of the traditional Chinese characters.

Should I use traditional or simplified Chinese?

Currently the majority of Chinese speakers in the U.S. use Traditional Chinese, but this trend is shifting towards Simplified Chinese. If your target audience is younger, or has more recently immigrated from China, it may be more appropriate to choose Simplified Chinese which is now taught in most Chinese schools.

Is China a CN or zh?

ISO 639-1 standard language codes

Language (Region)	Code
Croatian	hr
Chinese (PRC)	zh-cn
Chinese (Hong Kong)	zh-hk
Chinese (Singapore)	zh-sg

Which is harder simplified or traditional Chinese?

Most resources teaching “Chinese” or “Mandarin” will be written in simplified. It’s arguably easier to learn as it’s less complex than traditional characters. Mandarin Chinese and Chinese dialects from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau use traditional characters.

Which form of Chinese should I learn?

Mandarin
We would recommend you to start learning Mandarin first since it’s said to be easier to learn and then build up to Cantonese.

Is HSK simplified or traditional?

HSK (Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi, translated as the Chinese Proficiency Test) is a standard Chinese language exam for foreigners and overseas Chinese. It is well-known all over the world and uses simplified characters.

Do most Chinese read simplified or traditional?

There are roughly 1.3 billion people mainland China where simplified has been the standard since the 50s and 60s. Taiwan and Hong Kong, the three places traditional is the standard, total about 32 million between them (23 million in the Taiwan/ROC, 7 million in Hong Kong, 2 million in Macau).

Why is zh used for China?

The ISO 639-1 code ‘zh’ identifies “Chinese”, but the concept of Chinese encloses a number of distinct languages or dialects that share certain traits….ISO 639-3 and Macro Languages.

Tag	Meaning
zh-cmn-Hans	Mandarin Chinese, Simplified script

Is zh Mandarin or Cantonese?

Normally we talk about mainland China (zh-CN), Taiwan (zh-TW), and Hong Kong (zh-HK). zh-CN is usually understood to be Mandarin written in simplified characters. The vocabulary and to some extend grammar is typical of the mainland China region.

Why is simplified Chinese better?

Simplified decreases the number of Chinese character strokes and the number of Chinese characters, which reduces the difficulty of learning Chinese characters, accelerate the speed of writing at the same time, is beneficial to popularization education, and easy for public to communication. 3.

Is simplified Chinese easier?

Some people may claim that Simplified Chinese is easier to learn, but it is only partially true. Simplified Chinese characters contain fewer strokes and may be easier to remember for new learners. The actual effort involved in learning either traditional or simplified characters is quite similar.

Can I take HSK in traditional?

The HSK is administered solely in Mandarin and in simplified Chinese characters; however, if the exam is paper-based, the test-taker can choose to write the writing assignments in simplified or in traditional characters, at their discretion.

Can Mandarin speakers read simplified Chinese?

Simplified and Traditional Chinese refers only to the written word while Mandarin and Cantonese refer to dialects of the spoken word. Therefore Mandarin or Cantonese cannot be used for document translation nor can interpretation be done in Simplified or Traditional Chinese.

Is zh simplified?

The standard locale for simplified Chinese is zh_CN . The standard locale for traditional Chinese is zh_TW .

How is zh pronounced?

zh- is very similar to the English “j” sound, except that in Mandarin Chinese the tongue position is a bit further back. zhi is not pronounced like “gee”, this is an alternate -i sound pretty similar to the zi, ci, si vowel sounds you learned before.

Who still uses Traditional Chinese?

Traditional Chinese characters are only still used primarily by those in Taiwan, Macau, Hong Kong, and many overseas communities, comprising a small minority of the Chinese-speaking population (~50 million people).

Does Hong Kong use simplified Chinese?

The People’s Republic of China and Singapore generally use simplified characters. They appear very sparingly in printed text produced in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and overseas Chinese communities, although they are becoming more prevalent as China opens to the world.

Why is Chinese abbreviated zh?

When zh is used on its own, it is usually used to mean the predominant language in the encompassed range, although this is not explicitly specified in BCP 47. For example, conventionally zh is considered to represent the predominant, Mandarin form of Chinese.

What is the difference between traditional and simplified Chinese?

Answering this question, of course, is anything but simple. Look at the difference in how the word ‘leaf’ is depicted below: At its core, Simplified Chinese is a simplification of the Traditional Chinese alphabet. This simplification is accomplished in two key ways:

What is the history of simplified Chinese?

Simplified Chinese actually has a very recent history. Originally the idea came about in the 1920’s but it wasn’t until the 1950’s that Simplified Chinese was actually born. But why did China feel the need to implement a simplified system?

What is the difference between Chinese traditional and Chinese script?

There are several variants of the the Chinese script used in different contexts. Chinese Traditional is the older form of the script and is used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and other locations outside of China, including various “Chinatowns” in the West. Chinese Traditional characters are more complex and more numerous.

What is the Standard locale for simplified Chinese?

The standard locale for simplified Chinese is zh_CN. The standard locale for traditional Chinese is zh_TW. I hesitate to point you towards the actual BCP 47 standards documents, as they’re, uh, a little heavy on the detail and a little light on the readability.