I know it’s an odd question, but I’ve just spent the last 2 years learning simplified characters, If I do come over to live there, I’d like to continue my studies… and to be honest I’m not keen on the traditional characters 明白了没有？ so does anyone know if there’s a language institute (preferably a university) that teaches simplified characters… or is that asking too much?? (sort of like asking a Jew to cook you pork)??
This is a serious request… damn those traditional characters are waaaay too complicated.
我喜欢这些汉字！
Oh while I’m at it… here’s a brilliant saying I’ve learnt in China, see if you can figure it out:
Some language centers may offer option courses such as “Introduction to simplified characters”, however there are none where the basic instruction is done in simplified. You’re unlikely to find that here, since the government issued Chinese proficiency tests are all conducted in traditional. It also wouldn’t make sense to teach in simplified when everything outside the classroom was in traditional.
There are plenty of online courses, including mine, that offer instruction in simplified though.
You can probably find a language center (TLI?) that won’t force you to learn how to write traditional characters by hand. But if you really are going to move over here, you should learn how to read traditional characters, since that’s what you’ll be surrounded by. If you can at least read traditional characters (and it will take you several months to get used to them as you relearn even the most basic ones), you can get by with inputting them into your computer or cell phone via Hanyu Pinyin.
Ah, well looks can be deceiving! I thought that too when I first began, and even though I was going to class at a local language center, I avoided writing like the plague. I figured being able to read them would give me the ability to type them, which was all I needed (however it meant getting lower grades in my tests since I kept using pinyin instead of the character).
Recently though, I decided to try learning to write characters. What I found was that characters are all just combinations of different radicals - usually 2 to 3 per character. So once you know the basic radicals (which you will learn automatically as you start writing), even though a character looks very complicated, it is actually just a combination of the old radicals, so it’s not that hard to write. It is also interesting to look at the character and figure out why they used the radicals they did. For example, why does this character have a “hand” character or a “mouth” character. My understanding is that you don’t get as much “meaning” from writing in simplified.
I’m sure people can write faster in simplified than in traditional, but typing speed is probably the same between the two.
Oi! Nothing with being simplified! Umm what was my point? Nevermind, I actually like what the simplified characters look like, they often remind me of kana, but I like the fact that traditional characters are the same as kanji, oh well, looks like I don’t have a choice, although I can bring my books along
[quote=“SerpentChina”]I know it’s an odd question, but I’ve just spent the last 2 years learning simplified characters, If I do come over to live there, I’d like to continue my studies… and to be honest I’m not keen on the traditional characters 明白了没有？ so does anyone know if there’s a language institute (preferably a university) that teaches simplified characters… or is that asking too much?? (sort of like asking a Jew to cook you pork)??
This is a serious request… damn those traditional characters are waaaay too complicated.
我喜欢这些汉字！
Oh while I’m at it… here’s a brilliant saying I’ve learnt in China, see if you can figure it out:
“老牛吃嫩草”[/quote]
Now let’s if you can figure out my phrase. If you are like a 老牛吃嫩草 then you can find many 援交妹 in 西門町
I love etymology. Traditional characters have that built in. Simplified characters have thrown away all their precious ‘5,000 years of history’, which was par for the course as far as Mao the Great Heathen Zealot was concerned.
Also, removing multiple versions of a character (with their separate meanings) or squeezing homophones into a single character makes language harder to understand, rather than easier. Plus, you’ve just eliminated the ability to read anything written before 1950, but of course, for the Chinese out there, all that is old irrelevant rubbish anyway.
Plus, it’s a creation and a symbol of the Chinese Communist Party, so supporting it means supporting them, in a way. Oh, but you do? That’s right. Long live the Glorious (Lack of) Vision of Chairman Mao!
Baloney. I challenge you to cite a single traditional character which is much easier to write and memorize than its simplified counterpart.[/quote]
Jury’s out on that one for me. I find that I haven’t completely forgotten the simplified characters and tend to take notes in class using them as they’re quicker, but if I do forget a simplified character I’ve completely forgotten it - the traditional you can sometimes ‘piece together’ by the bits they’re made up of and get it right.
When reading books and stuff though, there are lots of traditional where you can ‘guess’ how to read it and get it right most of the time, whereas that’s not so much the case with simplified.
This is the main reason why I chose to study in Taiwan in the first place. If you are starting from traditional characters then it is much easier to change over to simplified characters if need be rather than vice-versa. Reading simplified is not so difficult if you already use to reading traditional because you can look at the other words around the character and figure it out pretty quick most of the time. Mainland students who come here to study though,and are unfamiliar with traditional characters, basically have to learn to write all over again.
On the subject of schools, I have had many a classmate that first studied in China and when they came here to study, the teacher simply wouldn’t allow them to write simplified so they had to learn the correct way to write anyway. A while back though, I remember seeing TLI’s textbook and it was all simplified…strange.
I concede that simplified characters are easier to write, using less strokes. They might be a bit easier to learn how to write too, but their widespread use is a shame rather than a help, as it throws away so much of the history and nuance of the language. And who really needs to use them seeing as so much writing is done by computer these days?
I’m mostly hating them as they are often used as a big fuck off from the People’s Glorious Republic of Communist-with Chinese-Chacteristics China to the rest of the Chinese diaspora. As is my wont.
I agree about the whole traditional aspect and losing some of the culture and heritage etc (as you’ll see on the mainland that goes for pretty much the whole place), but don’t forget that characters have changed and been simplified more than a few times along the way, those ancient ones look crappy to me (But I do like traditional ones). Thing is, all the mainlanders I know can read traditional no problem, I know this because they watch Hong Kong movies or sing along to Taiwanese songs at the KTV and the subtitles are all in traditional (and I ask them often, can you understand that?) and they all can understand the traditional characters no probs
[quote=“SerpentChina”]I know it’s an odd question, but I’ve just spent the last 2 years learning simplified characters, If I do come over to live there, I’d like to continue my studies… and to be honest I’m not keen on the traditional characters 明白了没有
[/snip]
Very few people say ‘mingbai’ in Taiwan.
[quote]
“老牛吃嫩草”[/quote][/quote]
This phrase is very common in Taiwan.
For the record, I have heard from a couple people in Beijing that the mainland is considering switching back to traditional characters. This is partly do to the fact that people don’t write that much anymore. Everything is done on computers, cell phones, etc. So, it might be worth learning the traditional.
And I agree with Urodacus. I am learning traditional characters after learning simplified and wish I had started with the traditional. When memorizing, they actually have a meaning behind them with the sound - sound, sound - meaning, etc. which have been lost or changed in the simplified. I find it makes memorizing them easier… although definitely not easier to write.
It doesn’t take that long to learn the traditional. I am picking it up fairly quickly. I’m sure that once I go back to school and have to read a lot, they’ll stick pretty fast.
Just randomly picked a word out of the dictionary. Take 铁 for instance. The simplified took out the original tie (which doesn’t even show up on my selection of characters) out of 鐵. That’s the sound component of it… why would they put 失 in it’s place?
The only thing I don’t like is the lack of pinyin here in Taiwan. I can’t write characters on my phone because they use those strange phonetic symbols. Now, I have to learn that system.
[quote=“dedsall78”]Just randomly picked a word out of the dictionary. Take 铁 for instance. The simplified took out the original tie (which doesn’t even show up on my selection of characters) out of 鐵. That’s the sound component of it… why would they put 失 in it’s place?[/quote]Because 鉄 (tie3) is already in use amongst the commoners as a shorthand and its phonetic relation 跌 (die2) uses the same right hand side. But I do hate simplified characters. It’s so empty and unbalanced.
