Does anyone know of a list or table showing simplified characters in contrast to their traditional form? I just want to bring my simplified reading up to par with my traditional.
You can use Dr.Eye, it has a feature where it can convert your documents into simplified form or vise versa.
Also I love my Far East 3000 Chinese Character Dictionary. The characters are big, shows you how to write the characer, theres pinyin, and bopomofo, you get both simplified and traditional, word usage and the english translation! What more can you ask for?
I also use the Oxford Chinese<>English Dictionary by pleco for my PDA.
Thanks for the reply…but i would like to read them on my own and not use dr eye…i just want to become more balanced in my chinese ability. I have the 3000 characters cd. I was thinking along the lines of a table showing the most commonly used characters contrasted with their simplified forms. I heard that the chinese government printed one back in the day but I cant find one on the net.
Dear Southpaw,
Many years ago, I once bought a little booklet in L.A.'s Chinatown with a table of traditional and simplified characters for 20 cents.
Here is a book at the China Books web site:
http://www.chinabooks.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=CHCHUN
Kobo-Daishi, PLLA.
Maybe I didn’t explain Dr. Eye clearly enough. I’m also trying to keep up with my simplified chinese and continue to learn traditional chinese characters at the same time.
When I get a document in chinese/email. I use Dr. Eye to convert it into simplified. I print out both my original traditional doc and my simplified doc and I compare the two. I works out nicely for me.
Sorry I don’t know of a list but I’m sure there probably is one out there 
Is there a way to change Dr Eye to simplified - my Chinese is not good enough to find it in the menus - as best I can tell Dr eye seems to lock on to your operating system - I have traditional O/S - but I am in China - Dr Eye in simplified would be great - just now I have to use NJ Star - use it to change from simplifed to traditional - cut and past to MSword - then submit it to Dr Eye - I do this to get a better dictionary
rian, it also depends on what version of Dr. Eye you are using. I remember on my 98 version it didn’t have the conversion feature but now i’m currently using 2002 in the office. Are you saying that Dr. Eye does not recognize simplified characters at all?? I use english windows at home and my 98 Dr. Eye doesn’t even wink at the simplified. Perhaps you can get one of your chinese friends to help you.
Most Chinese dictionaries, esp. those from the PRC, should have charts of simplified and traditional forms.
For some of the quirks in the simplification process, see zhongwen.com/jian.htm
For more on the futility of character “simplification,” see Asia’s Orthographic Dilemma.
As for Dr Eye and MS Word, Word will make the change from simplified to traditional or vice versa all by itself. On my computer, the button for this is between those for print preview and spell check.
For some reason Dr Eye cannot “see” the the characters in NJ Star - tradional or simplified - I am using 2002.
Interesting - I just put dian (electric) simple and traditional in one Word document - side by side - Word is fine but DR Eye was not happy - went to sleep - but woke up when i closed the document - dian is my usual test word for these things
In Hong Kong, you can find pocket size books that have simplified characters with their traditional forms. They are in every book store. You can look up by pinyin, radical and stroke count. I think Taiwan book stores should have them, too.
I’ve seen books like JT mentioned for sale at Chengpin (right next to the registers – point-of-purchase) and most Mainland import bookstores. I’d buy one if I didn’t already have too many dictionaries.
Oh, go on and just buy the thing. It shouldn’t be more than NT$30-40. Hasn’t anyone told you yet? Your commitment to learning Chinese isn’t actually measured by how well you speak it, but by how much money you’ve spent on reference materials. 
Are Chinese who speak no English included in “reference materials” - I should be a professor by now
Hi.
I was typing a email in simplified chinese using hanyu pinyin when i came across a slight problem. i wanted to write the word law as in falu with the umlaut(?) on the u. but when i type in “lu” it didnt give me the option for the word i wanted.
how do you type in lu with a umlaut. i thought it could be done alternatively by using luu. but it didnt work. i’m using the pinyin that comes with windows.
thanks
[quote=“Kenny McCormick”]Hi.
I was typing a email in simplified Chinese using hanyu pinyin when I came across a slight problem. I wanted to write the word law as in falu with the umlaut(?) on the u. but when i type in “lu” it didnt give me the option for the word I wanted.
how do you type in lu with a umlaut. I thought it could be done alternatively by using luu. but it didnt work. I’m using the pinyin that comes with windows.
thanks[/quote]
Ha! Yes, I too have experienced the same frustration. I even went to the point of doing radical lookups for lu: characters. Then one day I looked over and noticed a secretary in our company using pinyin to type rather than the more difficult input methods, so I asked her how to do it. Try typing lv. It works for every software I’ve used.
that ‘u’ is a v
that ‘u’ is a v
that ‘u’ is a typed as a v