Why Use Traditional Characters? (UPDATED) | Learn Chinese Now
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- čas přidán 30. 06. 2024
- Ben and Yi examine the advantages of using Traditional Chinese Characters.
This version corrects a mistake in an earlier version of the video. Thank you to Gabriella1230SX for pointing that out to us. We always strive for the highest possible accuracy in our videos but sometimes do make mistakes.
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I'm Taiwanese and we use traditional characters. But I don't think simplified ones are bad, it gets the job done and quick when writing by hand. For some too complicated characters some Taiwanese also use simplified ones, though traditional characters' extra complexity makes you appear more intelligent (as it is in various other areas). Complicated form also gives you more room to make your own writing in your own style.
You are very mature. One should maturely use a very different angle to look at simplified chinese characters if he or she uses traditional chinese characters.
Brace yourself, my Taiwanses bro. 劣幣驅逐良幣。
Well said.
chinese characters actually need to simplified, but not like the mainland did
it need to be done without removing the meaning, withput removing the radicals
我是美國人，可是我住在臺灣兩年了。我非常愛你的國家！我有一天回去那裡！
Making characters easier to write is literally 1984
Seriously, I find traditional Chinese characters more beautiful lol At the same time, I bet they have a longer history .
My chineese friend says it is chineese but you are having a stroke. He says it is incredibly difficult to learn. 學学
The point is, Traditional Characters make sense. Simplified Characters make no sense
Here are few examples:
飞 >< 飛
龙 >< 龍
进 >< 進
马 >< 馬
学 >< 學
Just look and see
Pet peeve: when they people refer to the Latin Alphabet as "English letters".
Agreed, and I am English.
+Joseph Duffy: In this case that's rather reasonable, because pinyin is a romanisation using not any Latin alphabet, but precisely the English alphabet.
+Joseph Duffy actually the pronunciation of pinyin romanization is pretty similar to italian or spanish, and the accents are very easy to assimilate since we already have ü and ú (spanish). "english letters" It just proves not only the chinese have been culturaly downgraded.
Same. English technically doesn't even use the latin alphabet, as it uses letters and sounds that didn't exist in Latin, and because English is a Germanic language, not a romance language
+Appstmntnr: Sounds used in a language have nothing to do with how the writing system is called. And the name “Latin alphabet” doesn't refer exclusively to the alphabet used in Latin, but to any alphabet based on it, thus i.a. one says that French, Polish or Vietnamese use Latin alphabet.
And even if one means the alphabet used to write Latin, then English happens to use exactly the set of letters, which was used in Latin around the times of the Middle Ages or the Renaissance.
Grew up learning Simplified in Singapore. In Singapore's case, the motive wasn't about 'thought control' but about the perceived the ease of memorization and accelerated learning of otherwise complex characters by mostly uneducated population in the 1960s. Simplified was used in the reading of Chinese classics and proverbs.
Same for mainland China.
Exactly, i don’t know what these people are talking about. Some words are much more complex e.g 書，龍，還，邊 etc. A few extra strokes turns hundreds of extra strokes over time… and at that point, it’s pretty evident that you’ll forget characters more often
Since you 'strive for the highest possible accuracy', allow me to make some points:
1) The CCP did not create most of these simplifications. Most of them had already existed as cursive or variant forms, and many were actually created by the KMT in the 1930s and Japan shortly after WWII.
2) The 'heart' component in the character for 'love' was not removed, but was rather reduced to a horizontal stroke, as is typical in the millennia-old grass/cursive script.
3) The 隹 in 進 is actually a reduction of 閵 (a variant of 躪), and was chosen both for the second half of its pronunciation (the final '-in' in Mandarin) and its meaning of 'trample/overrun'. Admittedly, 井 isn't much better as a phonetic substitute because while the initial 'j-' is more accurate, the ending '-ing' isn't so much.
4) From my experience, at least, I have never met a citizen of the PRC who could not read texts in traditional characters, although they could seldom write any apart from a few common ones (or their names). The difference is often exaggerated in general.
5) Romanisation also couldn't completely replace characters because of homophone issues, especially in Mandarin. These homophones would be particularly problematic in law, medical, and STEM publications.
6) Macau and the Republic of Korea also officially use traditional Chinese characters (they can sometimes be found in Vietnam as well); Japan officially teaches most of them in high school as 'name characters', and one-third of the Japanese simplification patterns are identical to the Chinese ones (while the rest are typically less drastic).
Thank you, well said
苑安雄 OMG, a Taiwanese defending the mainland China.
I love Taiwan and I am going to learn Chinese because of you country, for me, the real China, and no because of political but historical reasons.
Is true that you use traditional characters?, I prefer them so it would be great
Like 鐵 to 鉄 (tetsu). Much easier to write the latter, also the 失 (shitsu) also has "-tsu", so it helps with memorization.
did the communist party really planned to change the use of hanzi to romanized pinyin ?
@@strongindependentblackwoma1887 They did attempt it, but wasn't successful because of the said homophone problem. Mandarin has evolved to lose most of the ending consonants, in contrast to Cantonese, which still retains a lot of them, so this particular problem is quite prominent. Vietnamese, a language which succeeded in shedding its Sino-based writing system could do that because of its rich phonology, which allows it to distinguish many similar sounding characters, thus helps alleviate the homophone problem.
Good video but you missed some issues: 1) character simplification wasn't a communist idea. In fact, as soon as chinese nationalist overturned the Qing Dynasty, they started to talked about simplified characters in order to improve literacy rates. 2) traditional characters aren't forbidden in mainland China. 3) Many simplified characters originated from cursive version of traditional characters so... they're truly a product of Chinese culture. And 4) why used a complex novel to simple said that the Chinese Government is evil?
Carlos Millán Wow Bro, you know Chinese history well. Thumbs up!
Carlos Millán
For your points:
1. The Nationalist government initiated the project and tried to increase the literacy rate by simplified Chinese. HOWEVER the government didn't approved project actually. 2. Many people actually prefer to bring traditional Chinese back to school for their kids now in China. Simplified Chinese destroyed the rules of Chinese Phonogram. 3. Traditional Chinese characters are the advanced version Chinese characters which were improved from these ancient Chinese/simplified Chinese. Traditional Chinese shows the patterns of the pronunciations and the parts of characters. It is easier to learn when you try to increase your Chinese word bank as it has patterns. Why do we need to go back to use the "ancient Chinese/ simplified Chinese"? The Chinese government stopped continuing to simplify Chinese characters in 1977 as they found the confusions in communication caused by these simplified Chinese characters. 4. The Chinese Government is not evil. I love Chinese people. I love the country. But more over, all we love to see, and are looking forward to seeing the country's growth with more democracy and liberty.
Carlos Millán simplified wasn’t enforced until Mao Zedong came in power and he promoted the crap out of it. Many people I know that are considered Chinese refugees from the 70’s learned simplified in China but ending up preferring traditional. It was the writing system their parents used. It was the prefer Chinese writing system the rest of the world knew until Mao came into power.
yup you are right, chinese government is not evil at all.
they were a communist idea to eradicate traditional chinese from chinese culture，as traditional confucian，taoist and buddhist ideologies such as free thinking and free intellect opposed communist ideologies，so destroying the language would destroy the meanings 。
Actually, in 爱, the simplified form of 愛, the heart (心) is simplified into a line (一) so it takes only one stroke instead of four to write. The heart is still present but under a simplified form, so love still contains a heart. This simplification is similar to the way 魚 is simplified into 鱼 by replacing the four dots at the bottom by a line.
Also, in 进, the simplified form of 進, 井 replaces 隹 because that part of the character was actually supposed to be a phonetic clue to indicate the pronunciation of the character. 隹 was originally a simplified form of the character 閵, itself a variant of the character 躪. The character's pronounciation, "lin4", is similar to 進 and it didn't mean "high and steep", but "to trample down". Since "to advance" is pronounced "jin4" in modern mandarin, 井, which is pronounced "jing3", is well suited to indicate the prounounciation. What the simplification does is replacing a simplified form of a character's variant with another character in its full form. Many chinese characters, like the character "to advance", are formed according to the rebus principle by putting a phonetic component and a semantic component together. Not all chinese characters depend solely on semantic components.
The argument that simplified chinese characters cut the Chinese people from their history is ridiculous. Even without reforming the writing system, the USSR was able to successfully censor many works and deny their population from reading them. A reform of the writing system has nothing to do with censorship when the governement controls the distribution of information anyway. Furthermore, chinese classical works were written in classical chinese (文言), a language used only in classic litterary works that nobody speaks anymore, like latin in the West. So even if there weren't reforms of the writing system, ordinary Chinese people would still be unable to fully understand classical works, but only grasp a fraction of their meaning.
This video is quite dishonest when it comes to promoting the learning of traditional characters over simplified ones. Ironically, it uses propaganda at the very begining as an argument against the supposedly propaganda motive behind the creation of simplified characters. The simplification exists because China couldn't possibly make use of typewriters in the 1950s due to the limitations of its writing system. The communist party was only trying to find ways to improve the speed of writing, which is kind of a big deal when everyone could only write manually.
Then, the introduction of computers made the original motive obsolete so the simplification of characters is no longer necessary. Also, since simplifications tend to make characters look uglier in some cases and don't make much sense in other cases, using them becomes an unattractive idea.
See? You can actually make an argument in favor of traditional characters without resorting to an almost cartoonish level of propaganda and dishonesty by using actual facts to support your point. There is no need to litterally invent a hidden political motive for a writing system reform based on anti-communist bias from the 1950s when said reform has nothing to do with politics to begin with.
Of course, using facts would make the argument seem less impactful compared to the idea of crusading against an evil regime simply by learning a given script... But why use truth when there are more efficient ways to promote an idea?
親（亲）不見，愛（爱）無心，
產（产）不生，廠（厂）空空，
麵（面）無麥，運（运）無車，
導（导）無道，兒（儿）無首，
飛（飞）單翼，湧（涌）無力；
有雲（云）無雨，開關（开关）無門，
鄉（乡）里無郎，聖（圣）不能聽也不能說；
買（买）成鈎刀下有人頭，輪（轮）成人下有匕首，
進（进）不是越來越佳而往井裏走。
只有魔，還是魔。
+Barceman 1003
Look. My point isn't that simplified characters are somehow better than traditional characters nor that traditional characters are somehow better than simplified characters. My point is that we shouldn't resort to politics or propaganda to support either side. Now, let's take an impartial look at each of these arguments against simplified characters
親 (qin1) is made of 辛 (taking the form 亲 in the character) which gives a sound clue (xin1) and 見 which gives a meaning clue (to see). Its simplification only keeps 亲 because the original meaning of the character 辛 is obsolete today so it can adopt the meaning of 親 without causing confusion. Thus 見 is no longer needed because 親, which meaning is still in use, no longer needs to be differenciated from 辛, which meaning is no longer in use.
愛 (ai4) is simplified into 爱 because 心 (heart) is simplified into 一. The heart is still present, but under a simplified form.
產 (chan3) is made of 产 which gives a sound clue (chan3) and 生 which gives a meaning clue (life, birth). Its simplification only keeps 产 because the original meaning of the character 产 is obsolete today so it can adopt the meaning of 產 without causing confusion. Thus 生 is no longer needed since it would only overtly precise its meaning, which would be redundant and serve no useful purpose.
廠 (chang3) is made of 广 which gives a meaning clue (a building by a cliff) and 敞 which gives a sound clue (chang3). Its simplification removes 敞 and the dot on 广 to keep 厂 only. It serves to differenciate 广 (also the simplified form of 廣 (vast)) from 厂 (factory) and to eliminate the redundancy of the sound clue 敞. While the new character is quite ugly due to its emptiness, there is nothing wrong about the logic behind the simplification itself.
麵 (mian4) is made of 麥 which gives a meaning clue (weat) and 面 which gives a sound clue (mian4). The simplification only keeps 面, a character still widely used today. Since 面 is a common character, writing it will lead to confusion because it could either mean "noodle" (麵) or "surface" (面). This simplification, while not making much sense, isn't too bad due to the big difference in the meaning of the two traditional characters, which makes confusion less likely to happen because the context would induce the correct meaning in most cases.
運 (yun4) is made of 辵 (taking the form ⻌ in the character) which gives a meaning clue (to walk) and 軍 which gives a sound clue (jun1). Its simplification (运) changes 軍 (jun1) to 云 (yun2) to improve the sound clue of the character. It has nothing to do with the removal of 車 (a car) since it wasn't even present in the traditional character.
導 (dao3) is made of 道 which gives a sound clue (dao3) and 寸 which gives a meaning clue (a hand). The simplification 导 changes 道 into 巳, which makes the character loose its sound clue but lets it keep a similar appearance. Although meaning is given by 寸 in both characters, it doesn't come with a sound clue in the simplified one. This is why this simplification is bad, not merely because 道 was changed into something else since it was just a sound clue, but because nothing replaces it AS the sound clue.
兒 (er2) was originally depicting two up-raised hands. The simplification changes it into 儿, which is a variant of 人. This is a bad simplification since the original meaning is lost.
飛 (fei1) was originally depicting a bird with its wings deployed. The simplification changes it into 飞, which is a single wing. There isn't anything wrong with this simplification since it still keeps the meaning of the character.
湧 (yong3) is made of 水 (taking the form 氵 in the character) which gives a meaning clue (flowing water) and 勇 which gives a sound clue (yong3). Its simplification changes 勇 (yong3) to 甬 (yong3) to reduce the number of strokes of the sound clue. The component that was replaced was only a sound clue and didn't have anything to do with the meaning of the character, so the simplification has nothing to do with the removal of 力.
雲 (yun2) is made of 雨 which gives a meaning clue (rain) and 云 which gives a sound clue (yun2). Its simplification only keeps 云 because this character used to mean "cloud" but was later borrowed to mean "to say something". The addition of 雨 to 云 was meant to differenciate "cloud" from "to say something". However, since the meaning "to say something" is obsolete today, there is no reason to keep 雨 and 云 can be used for its original meaning.
開 (kai1) is made of 門 which gives a meaning clue (a door) and 开 which was originally the depiction of two hands lifting a bolting bar. Its simplification keeps 开, which is the essential part of the character. There isn't anything wrong with this simplification since it keeps its original meaning.
關 (guan1) is made of 門 which gives a meaning clue (a door) and 卵 (taking the form 𢇇 in the character) which gives a sound clue (luan3). Its simplification into 关 removes 門 and changes 𢇇 into a character with a similar appearance. This simplification is bad since the character looses its sound clue AND its meaning clue.
鄉 (xiang1) is made of 食 (taking the form 皀 in the character), which means "food", in the middle and 邑 (taking the forms 乡 and 阝 in the character), which is the depiction of a city, on the sides. The simplification only keeps 乡, which depicts a wall on its own. This simplification is incorrect since it removes the meaning of "city" by not keeping the full form of the original depiction.
聖 (sheng4) is made of 耳 which gives a meaning clue (an ear) and 呈 which gives a sound clue (cheng2). Its simplification changes the whole character into 圣 which removes the meaning clue and the sound clue. This simplification isn't bad because it removed 口, which wasn't an independent component in the first place, but because the character doesn't make any sense with the removal of both the meaning clue AND the sound clue.
買 (mai3) was originally depicting a bag full of cowry shells. Its simplification into 买 keeps the appearance of the character by making the original components more abstract. The same process took place during the transition from the seal script to the clerical script. Since the simplification only transforms the whole character into a more abstract form, it doesn't change the meaning of the character.
輪 (lun2) is made of 車 which gives a meaning clue (a car) and 侖 which gives a sound clue (lun2). Its simplification only follows the simplification of each of its component by replacing 車 with 车 and 侖 with 仑. Both simplified parts were simplified by making them more abstract and retain their original meaning. This simplification is logical since it changes the traditional characters it uses for its meaning clue and its sound clue it into their simplified counterparts.
進 (jin4) is made of 辵 (taking the form ⻌ in the character) which gives a meaning clue (to walk) and 躪 (taking the form 隹 in the character) which gives a sound clue (lin4). Its simplification (进) changes 躪 (lin4) to 井 (jing3) to improve the sound clue of the character. 躪 (lin4) was already simplified into 隹 as the sound clue in the traditional character, so replacing it with another sound clue in its full form shouldn't be a problem.
Everyone should argue like this instead of propaganda. Convincing.
Why isn't this the top comment ?! Very well put and said.
As a person that study both Traditional and Simplified, It baffles me that people eat up this NDTV propaganda of "Simplified Chinese= 1984 Orwellian style communist mind control method". Ironically enough, NDTV itself is not less of a propaganda channel than CCTV.
+Barceman 1003
汉字简化后，党内无黑，团中有才，国含宝玉，爱因友存，美还是美，善还是善，虽丑无鬼，只不过台无吉，湾无言。穷不躬，权不佳，党不黑，巩不革。车不行田，坚不称臣。无鹿亦能丽，无巫亦能灵，无水亦能灭，无火亦能劳，无曲亦能礼，无手亦能击。办事左右不辛苦，垦荒何必靠豺狼。
漢字簡化後，黨內無黑，團中有才，國含寶玉，愛因友存，美還是美，善還是善，雖醜無鬼，只不過台無吉，灣無言。窮不躬，權不佳，黨不黑，鞏不革。車不行田，堅不稱臣。無鹿亦能麗，無巫亦能靈，無水亦能滅，無火亦能勞，無曲亦能禮，無手亦能擊。辦事左右不辛苦，墾荒何必靠豺狼。
From：www.zhihu.com/question/40833860/answer/88508685
In Taiwan, I catch my students sometimes writing in simplified characters and I'll be momentarily confused because I can read the traditional characters but I end up having to guess the meaning of the simplified characters (which is not that hard). Students use simplified characters as a shorthand, a kind of cursive writing. I think the simplified characters were designed that way: when going from 說 to 说 or from 媽 to 妈 all you are doing is using fewer strokes: you can see that they are similar.
If u want to learn both then start with traditional, I am a Hong Konger so I learnt traditional Chinese and it took me 30 seconds to figure out how to read simplified Chinese on my cousin's book, but she can't read traditional
Your comment was super helpful to me so thank you :)
I've been trying to read Simplified Characters for 4 years and I still don't understand one single word.
On the other hand, when I read Traditional Characters, I can imagine. I can give you a few examples:
飞 >< 飛
=> This word means "Fly" and which one do you think that looks like a wing and makes you "Fly"?
亲 >< 親
=> This word means "Family" and which one shows you the image of "Family"????
马 >< 馬
=> Which one looks like a "Horse" to you?
It's pretty clear to me that Simplified Characters are bs to the core.
The purpose of the simplified characters wasn't to cut off people from their history, but to improve literacy.
How is it difficult to teach a few extra strokes at school? Also, it's disputed whether it had any effect at all on literacy rates.
I think it's because more people use simplified characters in their daily lives.
@@MadJackChurchill1312 i know this is late, but i'll answer it. The reason is because back then, china lived so much in poverty. Some of the people don't have a financial support for their education. The chinese people back then don't know how to read and write. China has low literacy rate. To improve it. The chinese government turned the traditional characters into simplified so that the people dont have a hard time to learn it.
@@yimb-qe4qd because they're forced to use them 。traditional characters are illegal to teach in the mainland 。don't you think if it was to simply increase literacy and not to eradicate culture，they wouldn't illegalise it and instead let people learn what they want？if people thought it actually helped them，they can learn it but i guarantee if they were both legal，the whole world would be using traditional characters right now 。
@@Magmeow05 well now that china's literacy rate is over 90%，do you think they'll ever revert back to traditional culture and language？no，because they think they've already eradicated it and they will never 。however here in australia for example，almost everyone everywhere uses traditional characters and it's beautiful 。
Ive studied Chinese. Professors taught both, we got to choose. I chose traditional...
Cometita Blin Blin in some cases it's better to know both, many cursive form of traditional characters are more alike the simplified one(That was the objective of the simplification really), but it's better to know both
@@p.budiel1170obviously it's more useful to know both，but i would also choose traditional characters for the reasons in the video 。plus，i'd be using the same script as my ancestors from thousands of years ago 。
@@diva3713 hmm..same..my ancestors used traditional chinese ;>
The simplified Chinese existed before the Communist took over China. Nationalist started the simplification process in the 1930s. However, after the Nationalist fled to Taiwan, anything proposed by Communists was not accepted by the Nationalists. Since then, the issue in terms of the simplified and the traditional is more like a political thing instead of a linguistic issue. BTW, I learned the simplified first, and then the traditional in the college. I agree that the traditional is more beautiful and linguistically correct, but the simplified is much easier to learn. Throughout the Chinese history, Chinese written language had been constantly simplified.
yes, I am from mainland China.
+June Lee I am in the U.S.now. Even when I was in China, all my classmates and friends used the proxy to circumvent the government firewall. Actually, it is not difficult to get access to Facebook or CZcams in mainland China. Just more hassle.
It's hopeless that government blocks everything and make a censorship. :/
Pollution and rude people also aren't good advantage.
That's why most people prefer Taiwan and Japan. What do you think? Is China have a chance to change their own politics by removing CCP and making China more polite, democratic and liberal based on the west and Japan politic?
When a increasing number of Chinese people become rich and are stepping into the middle class, they will start to demand more things that they are deprived of from the government.
For instance, the middle class have the possibility of getting access to good education, and many of them receive their higher education in the West. After finishing their study abroad and return to China, people want to keep living in the way as they did in other countries. Similarly, millions of Chinese tourists travel around the globe every year. The good things that they see in other parts of the world may also inspire them to think about why they cannot enjoy in their homeland.
Right now, there are still lots of Chinese people struggling for basic things like food and shelter. When the percentage of the middle class is large enough, the pressure they will put on the government will force it to change. If it does not change, they will definitely look for alternatives. I am optimistic if China economy keeps rising and the benefits can keep trickling down to the lower class of the people.
The main reason why there is no such thing like "Arab Spring" in China is that Chinese people are too busy in making money and getting rich. Whereas, their counterparts in Arabic countries initiated the revolution, because people had no ways of surviving and mobilizing in their countries.
Can I ask where you got that information? I would like to read more about it.
"A lot of Chinese characters are simplified so teenagers in Mainland are not able to read about their history"
"Only 30% characters are different so if you learn traditional Chinese you can definitely understand simplified Chinese"
Well that makes sense to me
I speak Hakka Chinese and I often call simplified script 'lazy script' because of all strokes you write less. And I also call traditional 'beautiful script'.
i call it communist script because it was forced down the throats of people who were unwillingly forced to learn it instead of their original language，since traditional confucian，taoist and buddhist ideals such as free thought，free speech and intellectualism opposed communist ideologies and therefore the communist government tried to eradictae them 。also my mum's entire family is malaysian-hakka！i speak a bit but i'm mainly cantonese because my mum's family speaks canto since it's such an important and universal language and my dad's family is all from hong kong so of course they only speak cantonese 。
I'm very happy you use the traditional characters. I'm a Dutchman learning Mandarin Chinese, but I don't want to learn simplified characters. Many of the courses offered here use simplified characters, so now I end up learning practically both simplified and traditional characters.
simplified characters do not stop evoluatin' & here're plenty of new words created every day, includin' those can be used to roast the govt! bty, the truth is that most of chinese in mainland can read traditional characters despite they never learned them in school.
yeah , that's true , I can read traditional characters if you put it in a sentence and I don't know why I can read it = =! Maybe they're like siblings so that I can read. But if you ask me to write down the traditional characters , it's difficult
I'm a Chinese . although we didn't learn the traditional ones , we can still read and understand them.But if one day you come to China , you'll find it more practical to know simplified ones coz only a few places like HK,Taiwan,etc use traditional ones all the time.
and if you have any questions you can ask me whenever you like.Hit me up a tweet @Matt_Bai_CHN or facebook "Matt Bai" or Google+ , I'd be glad to help. Anything about culture , languange ( both simplified and traditional ones ) or whatever . Although I'm not from Canton, but I lived here for quite a long time so I can speak Cantonese but not that good compared with native people
Matt Bai well, i really dont think simplified characters have anything to do with newspeak→_→ 当一个国家有一群汉语非母语的少数民族和一堆文盲的时候，简体字比繁体字实用得多（举个栗子，你看看繁体的“灶”和“龟”，这是要画死人的节奏么？）况且简体字并没有简化网民思想，我怎么觉得tc微博上的网友比谁都机智呢······所以我可以理解为up主简直就是传说中的被害妄想症候群么·····何弃疗啊~
"english letters"
lmao they should've said "latin characters"
Traditional characters is prettier and easier to understand. (My thought) ^^
Meu irmão, queria aprender chinês pra ler Laozi, como faço?
There's one little fact ommited in this video. Before simplification, literate population amounted to about 20% of the total, nowadays is the other way around (80% is literate). I'm all for classical chinese but simplified works very well.
Japan also uses traditional Chinese characters as their Kanji, rather than simplified. I know (some) Japanese so the traditional characters are more familiar to me. When trying to learn Chinese, the simplified characters fuck me right up
All are the same. By the way there are some characters that are different each other, 讀 (trad), 读 (simp), 読 (kanji). 卖vs賣vs売 发vs發vs発
关vs關vs関 龙vs龍vs竜 龟vs龜vs亀 And so on
traditional is beautiful and easier to tell apart from the other words because each character is so unique.
+Risa Lauren Tungol Simplified: 书 昼 画 --》Traditional: 書 晝 畫
+spam spam lol so you learn 書 and you can write three words 書晝畫. In simplified you need to learn three completely different words. Traditional is easier, obviously.
Well, I've read elsewhere that simplified characters was actually created before the Communist Party came along, and the Japanese used that before the simplfied characters became official as well, but nevertheless. If I use simplified characters, I lose dignity.
Actually a lot of simplified chars are just another style of calligraphy. 爱, for example, is the 草書 version. You can use "草書“ and "愛” as keywords to judge yourself.
And the 草書 was invented about 1600 years ago to provide a simple way to write Chinese chars.
It is like different font faces in English. I am sure you can understand the gist.
I hate CCP more than anyone on the earth. But this video is superficial at best.
The simplifed chinese characters had been there for at least one thousand years, we could found most of the simplifed chinese characters in many old chinese books. so the simplified characters were created by Chinese people OK? not by gongchandang. People created the simplified chinese characters because the traditional chinese characters were hard to write. The only thing that gongchandang did was to formalize the simplifed chinese characters. OK???? you say people cant love without heart? what a nice reason. well, L O V E, which letter represent the heart???? great! all english and american cant LOVE!! good for you!
I don't think it was meant literally. The word holds more weight and has more beauty with the heart being apart of it.
Tyler Roy with ur theory, we should use "甲骨文"
It's not my theory, it's just a theory that makes the most sense from an outsider or foreigners view. I was just pointing out that he didn't actually mean you are unable to love if it is not apart of the word. I don't speak/read/write Chinese but I'm researching some things before I start to learn, can you explain what that means and why it makes the theory I suggested wrong?
Tyler Roy if u dont speak chinese, i think u have no right to say like this, even if u do other research.The history of chinese character is very very completed. the changes are not only the way we write, but also the grammar. the chinese traditional grammar is very very different from current grammar. we changed the grammar and the way we write together. Taiwan use the current grammar but refuse the simplified chinese because of the politics.
we must admit that the old chinese is very hard to learn. for example, if we use old grammar and traditional chinese character, we must use five or six or even more years to learn how to use chinese. this is why we change it.
Tyler Roy before the character or the alphabet appeared, human had spoken their languages for a very long while. when human began to create something to write, the western created their writing system according to the way they pronounce, but eastern world didnt. the eastern world created 甲骨文, which was used to communicat with their ancestors. in 甲骨文, one character represents one meaning. for example, if u write an article with 3 pages, we only need 1 page or even less with 甲骨文. however, this brought one big question: homophone. there are lots of homophones in 甲骨文. so if we speak like this, ofc we cant communicate. so since that time, the writing system and the speaking system had become different. At last, the writing system became very very very difficult. for a chinese people, he need at least more than five or six years to learn how to write. for example, in old china, if u wanted to have some chance to win in the exam, u must learn chinese at least 10 years! u would memorise lots of books to learn it! so traditional chinese is: one character = one meaning or one thing. after we found the science from the west, we noticed that the chinese writing system was too hard. we had no time to learn science at all if we used the old chinese. so we decided to change it: change the grammar and the way we write. for the grammar, we used our speaking system. it means that we write how we speak. it means that we use word, which is composed by more than one character, to express one meaning or one thing. at the same time, we change the way we write: we simplified the chinese character.
all of these were done by 蒋介石. after 蒋介石 ran to Taiwan, he stopped simplifing the characters because the chinese mainland used it.
I am from Mainland China. And, I think traditional Chinese characters are more sophisticated but elegant at same time. Traditional characters have history.
Traditional characters are soo much harder to remember.. im a german student learning chinese currently. And i must say.. Im glad we learn simplified characters. I do see how some of the original intended meaning built into the traditional characters is lost, but that is just a beauty argument. For all practical purposes simplified characters are better, easier to learn and have no drawbacks at all.
Basing your argument on a fictional book wrote by George Orwell is definitely not convincing. Whats more convincing is this:
If i were to be a government that wants my people to restrain from any revolutions or any other critical thinking, I want them to be uneducated. What is a major part of being uneducated? Not being able to read and write. How do I achieve this at best? Making the used writing system as hard as possible (traditional characters). But the Chinese government did the exact opposite.. So... I totally disagree with almost everything that is said in this video. Sorry :/
Totally agree with you
good on you, you are a true German, always the most pragmatic of the bunch =), learning another language is not only to understand its culture, it's also useful in economic terms. and since most of the economic activity in the Chinese speaking world happens in Mainland China it'll serve you good by learning simplified Chinese.
also Chinese written language has been a history of simplification, the "traditional" Chinese is simply an simplification of earlier forms.
The Qing dynasty emperor actually chose the hardest characters (with
most strokes) and made them the standard instead of the simplified ones (simplified ones were banned from use).
Now I start to see why he did that, and why the literacy rate was so
low throughout the dynasty period.
You're totally spot on
Literacy is dependent on education and not just making an easier script.
The main reason for replacing traditional with simplified is because they wanted to dumb down the people's ability to understand their own culture so they'd be easier to control by making them not be able to read as well anything before the big simplification occurred in the late 1950's.
Simplified Chinese does not just simply the characters, it simplifies the language. In several instances, 3 different characters with the same sound are simplified into one character even though they mean different things. That may be fine for short hand but it is bad for the depth of the language.
In English, it is like simplifying "to", "too", and "two" into just "to". I don't believe any English teacher or educated person would advocate for this kind of change in English instead of just taking the time to teach people the difference between the three.
You can also see how by only using "to" for all 3 instances, it would limit what your brain has to think about and essentially simplify it by equating different things to one single character.
While traditional Chinese and all languages have these tendencies in places, it is very prevalent in simplified Chinese and does not accurately represent a culture that is around 5,000 years old. It represents a culture about 70 years old.
This is a huge problem in letting people understand their own culture. The CCP opposes traditional Chinese culture for its political power.
So be aware that it is easier but at a cost for your own understanding of an entire civilization.
I love the traditional characters for their beauty, deep meaning and history. It's my hope that mainland China will return to using them in the very near future.
I'm very happy you use traditional Chinese characters. I was born in Hong Kong and Cantonese is my mother tongue. And I learn traditional Chinese characters but in order to write faster, people in HK started to use simplified Chinese Characters. I don't like simplified Chinese Characters because it lacks the meaning of the word. Like when you look at a certain part of a traditional Chinese Character, you can actually feel what the word means. As you know, Chinese characters are created in different complicated system and is evolving over time to come to this traditional Chinese characters. I think using traditional characters is a respect to the (group) of people who created or modified them. And we should keep the culture going, we shouldn't just simplified it and let this time-honored culture fade in history!
I've studied Chinese using both traditional and simplified systems. I understand the benefits of both. Personally, I like how Japanese simplified some characters and left others intact. It strikes a nice balance between practical and aesthetically pleasing. (just my two cents)
Although I completely agree with the argument that the simplification process eliminated the intrinsic semantic ties to the historic origins you guys left out major counterarguments when dealing with this topic. What's more is that I personally disagree with the comparison to an Orwellian situation and this is because of the following reasons. 1). The simplification is derived from already existing cursive ways of writing. 2). Aside from Maoist rhetoric and political control on the freedom of speech, the Chinese language itself has not been modified in the same way as New Speak and does therefore not inhibit its speaker in the capabilities of their thoughts. 3). Even though the number of strokes has been reduced and component characters have fallen away, such as the 心 and 爱 that you gave, the strokes still have the same meaning as within the traditional counterparts.
Indeed, it is difficult to trace back the historic origins and proponents of the traditional way of writing see this as a loss of culture and identity. Finally, everything that happend under Mao is not to be excused but ask yourselves this: the simplification allowed for a tremendous increase in literacy rates in the PRC and grated the prospects of accessible lower and higher education to millions, is it that a bad thing to strife for? Again not trying to defend all of the horrible things that have happend.
The Simplified Characters increased nothing and just make everything more stupid by the day.
And if you want to argue, explain to me these words:
飞 >< 飛
This word means "Fly" and.....how can you tell me that it still has the "original meaning"? How?
龙 >< 龍
This word means "Dragon" and clearly the word on the left looks nothing like a dragon
马 >< 馬
You already know what it means and tell me, which character looks like a Horse?
Also, Chinese characters already have their variants, such as:
週 is a variant of 周
台灣 is a variant of 臺灣
盡快 is a variant of 儘快
盡早 is a variant of 儘早
Why do you need Simplified version when you already have Variants????
It is pretty clear that the CCP is making everything look stupid to fit their bs.
Many attribute the character for love 愛 as containing 心 (heart) and claiming that this represents the meaning of the character, but the history of the character shows that the 心 is not part of the meaning. This character originally did NOT mean love and meant "manner of walking." The original character for love was 㤅; over time, these two characters merged. Perfect example of thinking the arbitrary parts of the character like 心 give meaning. 爱 is just fine
Also, the character for advance 進 does have 隹 in it. It means a type of bird. Don't know where "high and steep; lofty" comes from. To walk into a bird? Advance? Why hold on to this idea? 进 contains 井 (jing), a helpful phonetic component. Again, not all parts of the character represent meaning; some just represent sound. Speaking of characters that have 辶 in it, this is actually a simplification of 辵. We have been simplifying things for a while; even some of these simplifications (such as this) make it into Traditional. So why is it a problem if certain characters are simplified.
That said, it is true that the simplifications have disadvantages. For example the phonetics can actually get harder if using the simplified form. 盤 (pan) has 般 (ban) which in simplified 盘 is 舟 (zhou). Also 國 (guo) has 或 (huo) while simplified 国 has 玉 (yu). That said in some ways the simplified is easier in phonetics, such as 憂 in simplified 忧 (you) has the component 尤 (you) for phonetic, while the original character has pretty much nothing.
Interesting that Japan has 新字体 (shinjitai), their own version of simplified characters and they have not gotten a lot of heat for reducing culture. A lot of their simplifications are the same if not similar to Chinese. 會 (hui / kai) became 会, 國 became 国, and 與 became 与.
In conclusion, there are advantages and disadvantages to both; pick which suits you. Language evolves, and perhaps the split between 简体字 and 繁體字 is just another example of how new types of Chinese continue to be formed.
+Marc Ong My favorite reply to "They took the HEART out of LOVE!" is "Well, at least they kept the HORSE in MOTHER."
The entire history of Chinese characters is a cycle of diversification and standardization, and this long before Simplified characters ever appeared on the scene. My favorite demonstration of this is in Weiger's "Chinese Characters" (1915), where he rants and raves against the misinformed, arbitrary, and fanciful forms of... Traditional characters. Because he is comparing them to the still older Small Seal (小篆) characters standardized during the Qin dynasty, and even further back to various archaic (古文) antecedents.
I appreciate your (+Marc Ong 's) character analysis of love 愛 and advance 進, because it actually shows how Chinese characters interact with the language, and not just our idealized imagination of them. Very helpful comment.
Thanks for saying that. PREACH
I still don't like it.
OK! You have right to post your video, but i also have my right express my understanding. Simplified Character has insufficient aspect because they are invented by people through only few years, rather than thousands years. The FIRST reason why I thought simplified Character has advantages is that the majority people in China had difficulty to learn and write Han characters because of the China’s War of Liberation. They have few chance to go to school to learn at that period. Then the new Chinese government popularised the Simplified Characters for easy learning. The SECOND reason is that the Traditional Characters are not only complicated for learning, but also taking time to write. Imaging in 1950+ there was no printer in China, so how do people write down the note, paper, documentation? So the simplified Chinese Characters helped people to save significant time on writing.
The last thing, that I learnt simplified Chinese Characters since I was in the primary school, however, we also had calligraphy course, in which we learnt how to write the traditional Characters as well. So the people from China main land could write simplified Chinese Characters, and also read traditional Chinese Characters. After going overseas, my Hongkong and Taiwan friends they also can write Traditional Characters and read simplified Characters. So don't complain who is right who isn't. If something can last long after being invented, it has its reason exist in this world. We can not refuse it because we are human being, who likes and has ability to learn as more as we can!
This video is kind ridiculous for me:
First, the simplified Chinese existed since long time ago.
Second, In China the primary school still teach the traditional characters to the students in Calligraphy class and this class starts at 2 degree and last to 6 degree.
Try not put everything into politics, Okay?
+Wolfang Young exactly.. the information here is just plain biased and wrong. it is okay to hate the CCP, but its disgusting to throw every possible dirt at them
+SY L the information here is actually right, but choosing which one to use does not have right or wrong
fea hhh i have another comment somewhere in this comment section correcting some of the claimed facts in this video, if you're interested, please have a read and i'd be happy to discuss anything you may want to disagree with me :)
Agree. I am not even from China or Taiwan but found this video ridiculously bias. Learned only simplified Chinese all my life but totally have zero problem reading traditional chinese too. I have great respect for the scholars who simplified the Chinese characters. Anyone with basic knowledge of chinese would know that even the 'traditional' is not the original chinese characters. Most if not all can't even read the original ancient chinese characters. All this talk about preserving the 'original' just sound like nonsense to me.
Those idiots are just too jealous that simplified Chinese characters are being much more used than traditional Chinese characters. What do you expect?
I appreciate what you're saying with your reasons and obviously it's completely up to you as they are your videos at the end of the day. But I think just to appeal to a wider audience you should show both sets of characters and people can make the choice of which to learn. The channel is called "Learn Chinese Now" not "Learn Traditional Chinese Now".
While talking about the differences between traditional and simplified Chinese characters, the Ai（愛）will definitely be mentioned. The simplified '愛' is not simply removing the '心' in it, but changing the bottom part to ‘友’. （愛 - 爱）
Many people think the simplified characters lose much unique and precious wisdom of Chinese tradition, but I think they just makes Chinese easy to write and read. Now, '龍、雞、龜、鳥' is '龙、鸡、龟、鸟'. See, how easy for you to learn and write these four characters. If the font size is not big enough, it will be hard to learn the precise writing of traditional characters.
For me, I am only 20, and learn simplified Chinese since I learn this language, but I'm able to recognise most traditional characters. I don't know why, but I think it is not fair to say that the simplified characters would make the new generation unable to know the history and culture.
If you go to USA, you need to know the differences between US-English and UK-English, it is quite the same with Chinese. If you need to visit Chinese mainland, it is not necessary to know traditional Chinese. The Chinese-learners can take them as extra skills.
I am a learner of English. Do you know how annoying to identify all the differences between US and UK English?
I will never say that it is wrong to prefer traditional Chinese, because I also like them. They are facinating to see, but I seldom write it.
Chinese dictionaries still keep the traditional Chinese characters next to the simplifed one, so the 共產黨 has not abandoned the tradition.
I agree!!
I couldn't agree more! 我们都是友好地去爱。所以爱的简体字也有意思。I really don't understand why lots of people say simplified chinese characters destroy cultural history. They should have known that at least 70% of simplified chinese characters have existed in the ancient times. Even though Mao Zedong was very evil, the fact is still most of the simplified characters have existed in the ancient times. Even though Mao Zedong is the evilest person of all time, the truth is still the truth.
The bird one looks like they turned the original into a low polygon roblox character.
I learned simplified growing up and have no issue reading traditional. Using simplified Is progress, same reason we don’t use old English instead of modern English.
I love writing classical characters because of the complexity, therefore I'd prefer to learn them over the more simplified. In my Japanese class, I've noticed that Japan uses the characters' classical AND simplified scripts. Some characters have been moderately or slightly tweaked, but still retain their complexity.
I'm a mandarin learner and I love hanzi, especially the traditional ones. I just love to find out the history behind each one of them...but I could never imagine writing a whole essay in traditional hanzi !!! One thing is replacing "amazing" and "excellent" with "double good" and "plus double good", another one is simplifying characters to have a lager amount of population to be able to write and not be an illitterate. The more a hanzi is complicated the more you're likely to mess it up !!! "Ai" remains "Ai" no matter how you write it, even if I always find myself writing it with the heart now ahahah
You are so right. In Japan we did similar things. We even made syllable alphabets out of them and tried to replace chinese characters with them. Japan is a modern democracy (I know it has not always been). And as much as I hate the chinese government as wrong is that lady with her propaganda statements.
>>simplifying characters to have a lager amount of population to be able to write and not be an illitterate.
Of course, we have to keep in mind whose definition of "illiterate" we're using. Chinese may be extremely literate within their own villages, but the CCP labels them "illiterate" if they don't bow down to the newspeak, so to speak ;-)
People should know that the simplified characters were introduced in the 30's 15 years before the Chinese civil war and 19 years before the establishment of the PRC. The simplified system was not made by the communist party it was adopted by them. Traditional Chinese writing system is really beautiful and ancient but it needs some simplifications. As for me I can write both. For example Serbia has two writing systems the Cyrillic and the Latin alphabet, the Cyrillic shows the Serbian people ethnic identity (Slavs) and many documents are written in the Cyrillic alphabet. But in Serbia magazines tv and newspaper are written in the Latin alphabet. An average Serbian can write in both writing systems and nobody gives a fuz about the writing system because both are being actively used by many people.
the process of learning characters is largely based on memorizing radical position, meaning and relationships. This means thats whichever route you take, you’ll need to go through more or less the same process and put in a similar amount of work.
Like many have already pointed out, many simplified Chinese characters, or the temporary ones, are variations used in Chinese work before, not some random creations. For most part, simplified is standardized. For beginners, learning traditional characters, is like learning Shakespeare English, is not necessary and harmful.
不真実
Many people still use traditional. Your comparison is inappropriate.
Interesting 1984 theory but here's a crazy idea... what if... they just wanted to make characters easier to write and more standardized so they can easily get literacy rates up and also simplify day to day written communication? I might be crazy but that seems slightly more probable than a 1984 control theory which really fails since people can complain/protest just as easily (if not more easily (in less strokes)) than with the traditional script.
Also, if you could try to keep learning and conspiracy theories on two different channels, that'll be great for people like me who want to learn but want political opinions out of it, thanks.
how about you keep your brainwashed communist opinions that no one asked for to yourself 。simplified characters only came about when mao zedong and his communist regime forced it down everyone's throats 。shut up，stop telling lies 。i seriously hope china goes to hell for eradicating traditional cultures and traditional chinese culture because confucian，taoist and buddhist ideologies and ideas such as free thinking and intellectualism conflicted communist ideologies 。disgusting how beijing mandarin is forced down everyone's thorats when cantonese is over 2000 years old and has so much more history，whereas the communist tongue is barely a fee hundred years old 。
What can you expect from Falun Gong practitioners? They're always spreading lies and misinformation.
Characters like 书 書 and 龙 龍 are chinese cursive of the formal writing, I don't think they are communist's weapon of mass destruction.
I really doubt you can sensor out any information just by changing a writing system. It is just like changing a font of the writing but the meaning of the sentense stays the same. So if say 我爱你，you would not think that I just want to be friend with you because of 友.
"I think the 1984 argument is a little thin "
It's actually a perfect analogy since the simplified characters lose the history of how the characters came to be and the meaning the characters have. Also, if you read simplified you can't read traditional and since traditional has been used for thousands of years that prevents those that only learned simplified from reading all that text cutting them from all of their history which has been the overall goal of the CCP in all areas.
a few questions/comments here,
1.) wondering about the fashion/professional choice of the female host :(
2.) 进（進）a few points here, first off do you have a reference where you learned about zhuī隹 referring to high and steep, lofty, and not a bird? 進 can be traced all the way back to Oracle Bone Script. Second, Chinese calligraphy often omits strokes in the cursive form and simplifies the character and, those who were practiced would easily recognize, during the 简化 simplification this step was eliminated and a bridge was made to the end result 简化字. Another example jī几（幾）coming back full circle from the original form to a more complex form and back to the simple character.
3.) Education is important, and for the masses who were mostly uneducated this meant a road to a better life and wealth.
4.) Eileen Cheng-yin Chow - an associate professor of Chinese literary and cultural studies at Harvard University says "Given the increasing flow of published and online materials among the mainland China, Taiwan, and the overseas Chinese diasporas, a literate reader must have the ability to code-switch."
5.) Chinese characters have always been changing, be it the round up of one system during Qin Shi Huang unification to simplification of many characters during the Han dynasty. Language is an evolution and is ever changing.
6.) I like both systems and love to dive deep into the meanings.
Thank you if you have read this far and 新年快樂。
im learning traditional chinese characters and then im going to work on simplified characters i am going to read harry potter in traditional chinese
When you discuss the form of the characters,please don't use politcial reasons as the argument.Morover,traditional characters is not forbiddened,you can use them if you like.
I think it is stupid arguing which one is better. Those people who make bad joke about simplified Chinese！Shame on you！Don't you know that your so called traditional Chinese is not that traditional as you think！Why don't you use Chinese characters used 4000 or 3000 years ago！According to your logic thoses characters should be more elegant，why you guys don't use it？Another reason that simplified Chinese used is that make more people like farmers can read. This is more important！Please just use your brain when you guys make comments or you just don't have one！I love both simplifies and traditional Chinese！We use simplified Chinese because we used to use it，but we can also read traditional Chinese.Some stupid people who use traditional Chinese usually behave so surprised when they know that we can read traditional Chinese！？Of course we can，we are not as fool as you anyway！
是啊。我就在想如果什么时候写的文章就用什么时候的文字来印刷刊印，那我们普通人就只能看得懂秦汉隶变以后的典籍了。我看秦汉时期的人们并没有因为大篆改小篆，小篆改隶书而犹豫啊。不然的话我们现在写“灯”或者“燈”就要画画了。
这些人就是永远缩在自己的那点小小的时空里跳不出来，极其狭隘，或者本来就是为了偏见而偏见。要是跳出自己所在的时空，我们本来就是历史的一环，发展到现在用简体字有什么可指责的，就想想再过个几百年，上千年，搞不好现在的简体字也成为汉字历史中的一环。那些台湾人自己都不知道自己的字本来也已经被简化了，只不过因为当时国共就像在较劲似的看到大陆改了简体字就把他们自己已经改好的放弃了，现在成天BB我们，真是懒得跟他们理论。。。
赞同，又不是每个人都想读中文系。。。
Understand it, share it:
zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/21356256
The traditional ones are more beautiful than the simplified ones, and they make more sense
15 seconds into the video and they start talking about George Orwell's 1984. lmfao
I think traditional Chinese characters are important in history, however, simplified Chinese characters are important in the future.
Kengben Chan you are very right.
Disagree completely. It is impractical to have a script meant for faster handwriting to be the only one taught.
I don't think so. Cause we'll use computers in the future. So we don't need to write by hand
Actually many simplified characters were simply cursive/abbreviated variants in use for centuries... Japan also simplified their Chinese characters, but no one is giving them shit.
Well, I actually prefer using Traditional Chinese characters because not only are they more beautiful, but they also carry more "meaning". I also learn the simplified ones since they are so commonly used. I use a mobile app called HelloTalk and I remember someone posting a picture of their writing practice. They were practicing both simplified and traditional, but then someone from China commented asking why so many foreigners learn traditional. To be honest, I find that question extremely annoying because I'm asked that so many times. I mean, there's nothing wrong for foreigners to learn traditional characters. Anyway, thanks for the video! Subscribed ^^
My partner is mainland Chinese and he can read traditional characters just as fluently as simplified.
Also, character simplification predates the CPC by about two thousand years.
Your reasons for rejecting simplified characters aren't really very compelling. :s
and your understanding is not very thorough.
I learned Traditional Chinese on Saturday at Chinese School..But when I take Chinese classes in regular high school, we learn Simplified -.- Traditional just looks more chinese
yes but hey, knowing both doesn't hurt!
NO1xANIMExFAN Makes you smarter :)
For a Chinese like me, they all look pretty Chinese. :)
Alessa No. I'm also Chinese....but Traditional Chinese looks like real Chnese (Well it is LOL) and Simplified is just.. like a slang version of Chinese, you could say..
InfiniteZodiac both are real chinese really. they're just different in that one has gone through changes. (well, languages ALWAYS go through changes so its not something people should complain about). it doesn't matter which one you learn because its the same language almost all simplified learners can read traditional (my personal experience and with people i know)and traditional people can learn simplified easily as well. (theres patterns in most simplifications).
the only complaint i have is that traditional has more strokes, and its a pain sometimes to write. but besides that, who cares what you choose to learn? it really doesn't matter.
To be honest. When you are writing, you will love simplified Chinese. And most of the people I know can read most of the traditional Chinese but only write few of them. But many of my friends from Hong Kong can't read Simplified Chinese at all.
Born in Malaysia in the 80s, I grew up learning the simplified writing, but in Malaysia, the traditional writing is somehow preserved in some way, in signs and Chinese newspapers headlines (not the text though), and so many can read traditional writing but unfortunately lack the ability to write.
I've recently made a conscious effort to switch to the traditional writing, teaching myself to write in it and even use Zhuyin religiously now, it's been a great joy, traditional writing actually isn't as hard as I thought, because it has ancient Chinese thoughts and surprising some Christian ones, I found myself remembering the character more easily, perhaps a sense of joy and enthusiasm help as well. It's such a joy and I wish I had grown up with the traditional one instead of the simplified one, but perhaps me having to work for it makes me appreciate it better.
I don't believe the simplified writing improves literacy, it didn't for me, in fact I forgot it for some years due to the lack of use. It is education for all that is able to reduce illiteracy, if traditional writing is the cause of illiteracy, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau would've been illiterate, anyone would be illiterate if education was unaffordable to them.
I began learning hanzi a couple years ago, mainly because I was interested in the beautiful characters and their underlying meanings. I was disappointed to learn that much of the original imagery has been erased. I was appalled to hear that the CCP wants to switch the whole system to pin yin. I am a westerner, and the loss of tradition troubles me greatly. I can see how native Chinese must be alarmed by these disturbing trends. I've been making a point to learn the traditional characters over the simplified versions.
And you've been swindled by omission. Propositions of switching to an alphabet or syllabary were proposed before the Communists were established. Famous writer Lu Xun said 汉字不灭，中国必亡 (either characters are eradicated or the country is). So major KMT party member Quan Xiutong proposed and drafted simplification (and also suggested the latin alphabet). After lost of discussions within thr KMT, it almost went into effect but a good many were not on his side and it failed.
even though I like the traditional characters more but I dont really think the so-called traditional chinese are really traditional, for you can also call the characters written on the turtle shell or bones traditional chinese. The chinese characters have been changing so much in the history and this is not the first time of simplification, can you call all that degeneration? And also the people in mainland really dont have a problem in reading old chinese characters and the simplfication started in the early 19th century before the party even existed
it's not. Most of the mainland people can't read the traditional characters.
Simplified Chinese Character lose their meaning in word. One word can stand for many meanings. As a results, people who learn Simplified Chinese Character can't even guess some of the words meaning.
It is the traditional characters learners can read Simplified Chinese Character without training.
that is bs, please give comment based on truth. I never heard anyone around me from mainland does not know traditional chinese. The taiwanese really need to do some work before they start telling lies
SuperMsalison actually,i can read traditional characters easily,don't surmise without any gist
The oracle characters dates back much longer, may be 5000 years or more. But remember, human written history is only about 5,000 years old. So, using the ananlogy that we cannot read the oracle characters as a reason to support changing to simplified set is inappropriate.
Which language has survived longest? Chinese. How long back we can read the Chinese text? At least 2000 years. This are historical records no other language can challenge by a large margin.
SuperMsalison thats not true i learned simplified and can read traditional with no problem at all...
Traditional Characters. My 10 year old daughter love how the characters are composed. I tutor her and she’s getting 100% on her test, quiz and exams. Although, she can’t speak fluently.
I grew up learning Simplified Chinese. It wasn't until I started learning Japanese I was able to read Traditional Chinese. I don't know if you all think its weird but that's how I learnt to read Traditional Chinese.
As a Hong Konger, I love the way you translated traditional Chinese as 正體, rather than 繁體. Traditional Chinese is the only orthodox Chinese. Also, many people regard Cantonese as one of the dialects in China, however, it isn't. Its an orthodox language used in Southern China, Chinese classics especially poems are pronounced in Cantonese, but not Mandarin.
However, there are only 3 countries or cities used traditional Chinese, they are Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. Other Asian countries (e.g. Malaysia, Singapore) used simplified Chinese.
The only orthodox Chinese characters should be Oracle甲骨文 or Xiaozhuan小篆.The seals of emperors in ancient dynasties were all engraved with Xiaozhuan.
Cantonese has never been orthodox Chinese, it is just a Chinese dialect.2000 years ago, the Qin Dynasty went south and conquered your ancestors, the Baiyue people. In the following two thousand years, you were Hanized.Since you Baiyue people are not native speakers of Chinese, you must have an accent.
According to research by linguist Li Jingzhong李敬忠, 20% of the vocabulary in modern Cantonese comes from Baiyue, and the Zhuang and Dai minorities still use these words.
According to the records of Tang Dynasty poet Han Yu韩愈 and some Song Dynasty officials, at that time people in the Central Plains could not understand Cantonese at all.
Btw, 粤 is just another way of writing Baiyue越, 粤语=越语, and both have the same meaning.There is no rhyme at all when reading "悯农" in Cantonese.
Modern molecular anthropology has also proven that most Cantonese people are Baiyue people who have been Sinicized, and only 10% are Han people from northern China.Therefore, many Cantonese and Guangxi people look exactly like Southeast Asians and are shorter than North Chinese.
簡體字在書寫上比較方便 但以閱讀的角度來看 繁體字更有意境 這純粹是喜好問題 簡體繁體各有優點 沒有所謂哪一種比較好
是，簡體字也是非常醜樣！光復繁體字！
-香港同馬來西亞人
毛泽东没想到几十年后，电脑输入法会如此便捷。但在当时的情况下，我能理解为啥要简化。如今我也更支持恢复繁体字。
First off, I am an American and I took two years of Chinese when I was in high school. My teacher taught us simplified but showed us traditional as well. I will say I wish I learned more of the traditional because in the end a lot of those characters were easier to remember because of the different characters put together made sense. I can't remember a whole lot anymore but I do remember how the character for heart was in the character for love. Maybe I will learn Chinese again and focus more on the traditional characters.
I'm very interested in Chinese culture, and currently I'm learning Mandarin and Chinese calligraphy. I want to learn the traditional style, so I'm very thankful that you guys always use that style =)
I hope that those scholars manage to get the traditional writing back. No country should be bereft from it's rich cultural history.
really expert
If that is the case Korean, Japan and Vietnamese should go back to traditional Characters that was originally traditional Chinese characters. The reason those countries created their own writing system so they could be distinct from their past rulers.
Making chinese simplified doesn't make their meaning go away. For God's sake they are pronounced the same way
@@medcastrophilip544 pronunciation is irrelevant？the traditional meanings behind the characters have cultural signifiance to us 。simplified characters were implemented to eradicate traditional chinese values since they oppose communist ideologies 。so get your facts straight 。
@@CrimsonEclipse no it's because korean，japanese and vietnamese were separated from china for so long that the chinese characters no longer suited the languages properly and so they adapted a new writing system specifically for their own language 。however the japanese language was more compatible with chinese characters so they implemented them in some areas，whereas in other words/phrases they used kanji that were derived to give a different meaning (hiragana and katakana) 。
Thanks for this information! I've decided to learn traditional characters only, thanks to this video. I haven't chosen a place to get lessons yet, so I've found out about the difference just in time. :) I would hate to miss out on all the symbolism built into the original characters.
Conclusion: mainland Chinese ( slangs, common expression,etc ) and simplified version= North American English = language leader and market trend Taiwan, Hong Kong,etc and traditional version = Aussie English, British English= minority culture and cultural heritage
Kite Fan I mean maybe I don’t agree with the Aussie one haha but I couldn’t have said the rest better
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Chinese_characters Sorry to say this but simplified chinese is less than a thousand years from the time you commented. Thanks
For me Simplified Chinese has two main advantages: 1. Easy to improve literacy of Chinese. 2. Easy to write and improve the efficiency of work.
Traditional Chinese also has advantages. 1.It makes more sense in many characters. It delivers more accurate meanings. 2. The beauty of appearance.
So I think during daily life for working, it is better to use Simplified. But in important academic books, it is better to use traditional one.
I think you guys have a good point, I've been learning mandarin with simplified characters, but I'm definitely switching over to learning traditional now that I have a good reason to.
This video seams to create a conspiracy against China, and I sincerely believe that simplification of Chinese script is less about brainwashing citizens, and more about improving facility in escalating intelligence for all. Traditional characters are often over ten strokes more than simplified, and it really doesn't take a scholar to understand that you love with your heart. Please give the Chinese people more credit, and please broadcast with more truth.
people now type on the computer- stoke count does not matter. the move was to preclude the masses from reading traditional texts with 'radical' ideas- Who is this Confucius guy?
Who wants to read 1000 year old texts anyway, right? What is this culture and tradition that people keep talking about....
Thanks for reiterating what the video already said, which might have been useful hadn't I already seen the video. Quick research on your part will reveal that the simplification of the writing system began in the early 1900's in order to connect China and it's people to the outside world. Sorry, but writing will always be useful and a necessary means for learning the writing system as memorization is a tedious process. I urge you to do some research for yourself because there are exact translations from traditional to simplified texts available to the whole world. I also urge NTD to do this because it's obvious that this story is very one-sideded and biased which negatively affects their reputation by those who pay attention and also gives people, maybe like you, the wrong idea about the entire country.
I'm not saying that the PRC is flawless, it either needs reform or someone else will take over. Either one must eventually happen, but if NTD is going to report on something so controversial, then it should at least report all sides of the argument instead of putting out propaganda, making them as bad as those they attempt to slander.
Samuel Parson Thanks for your understanding that! Many people don't like the communist party in mainland China, then they take every chance to against everything from mainland China. I admit that something in China is not so good, but we need to criticize it unprejudiced.
I couldn't agree more! You are my hero!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
yeah its about having time to do more things instead of wasting it in writing
It's better as it is more practical to learn traditional characters at first: more meaningful and it is easier to switch from traditional ones to simplified ones , than the opposite. And indeed it is more beautiful.
From grades 7 through 12, Korean students learn 300 characters per year in separate courses dedicated to Hanja. Unfortunately, these students will encounter very few opportunities to put their knowledge to use, as very few publications in the 21st century use Hanja (which are mostly found in dictionaries, names/titles, or printed beside a difficult or ambiguous Hangeul term). Hanja provides an effective means of distinguishing homophones, and also allows a word's meaning to be readily apparent.
2:20 you mean Latin letters ?
Why not just use oracle bone script? Then you'll have the true original meanings.
+Anonymous User Well the oracle bone script came before the golden age of Chinese civilization, so therefore wasn't as developed as what came later. The Tang Dynasty 618-907 AD is generally considered the golden age.
***** It was a joke ;) But I appreciate you taking the time to formulate a thorough answer.
+Anonymous User thanks for contributing to the conversation
+Learn Chinese Now LOL golden my ass, the golden age in Tang dynasty only lasted few decades it was under Wu Zetian and Tang XuanZong. the golden age of Tang ended, in 755AD when An Lushan started one of the most deadly wars in world history. that is only 60 odd years after the founding of Tang dynasty, after the Anshi rebellion were a slow death of Tang dynasty.
the true golden age of Chinese culture was during the Zhou dynasty. from Confucius to Sun Zi, voices from 100 schools of thought flourished, and back then they were using Bronze script and Bird&worm script.
by your logic you should be advocating for Bronze script. or do you have an ulterior motive? are you trying to brainwash people by advocating the ugly "traditional" script?
But these ancient scripts are still being used by artists, even in Japan.. When I visited Osaka once, I saw some calligraphers who requested certain doublets to be written in specific styles, by tourists. I gave one of them "Li shi bu ai" in cursive script an he did a beautiful job, which I had framed.
"And even if you do travel to mainland China, only around 30% of the characters used in common writing are actually simplified, so if someone has learned traditional, it is normally not hard for them to read simplified texts."
You do realize this argument works both ways, right? I read simplified characters because that's what I learned, and I haven't had much difficulty traveling in Hong Kong or Taiwan. The biggest challenge was the language barrier in HK since I don't speak Cantonese.
Chinese characters have undergoing changes since the Qin dynasty in 200s BC. Even though the Party did committee lots of anti-human crimes in the first 30 years since the founding of PRC, saying that simplified Chinese characters is less than traditional ones is just like saying American spelling is better than British spelling, which is nonsense. And for your information, Japanese also simplified their Hanji characters without the involvement of any communist party at all. Also, simplified characters are used in Singapore and taught in Malaysian schools.
Yeah no. The simplified characters were to improve literecy not to "cut people of from their history". Besides, even before characters were simplified people couldn't read the classical text in their original because they were not written in what was at that point modern, spoken chinese but in classical chinese that was only understood by the elites.
although i do admit that traditional characters have a sense of deeper meaning and beauty, this video's attempt to criticize the Chinese government is just bs. By the way, most people in mainland China are able to understand traditional Chinese characters even tho we don't learn them at school.
Also I wanna add that in Japan we also use some simplified ones, and even created our own alphabets out of them. We are a modern democracy. (I know we haven’t always been, but that’s not the case with any country on earth) :D
Traditional characters from generation to generation and they just killing it
Being of Taiwanese descent, I preferred the look of Traditional characters over the simplified. I actually still do. However, being born and raised in Europe, I have never learned to read and write the characters properly. Now that I moved to China for a couple of years, having to learn Hanzi now, I can appreciate the Simplified version much more, since they are a bit easier to learn. Tradition set aside, let's face it, the spelling of European languages has changed a lot, too.
There's a very popular argument for simplified characters.
Try writing "depressed Taiwanese turtle" 100 times.
Traditional: 憂鬱的臺灣烏龜
Simplified: 忧郁的台湾乌龟
Yeah if you're Taiwanese than you'll sure be much more depressed doing this.
But yeah if you dig into the deep meanings, the biggest downfall of simplified words is that they merge many words into one. Like the word 郁, which means richness (especially in fragrance), exists in traditional too, and is completely different from 鬱 which means stuck, clotted, that makes 100% sense when put with 憂(worry) to get 憂鬱(depression), that your worries and negative emotions kinda stuck in your head.
Yet the simplified system just replaced all the 鬱 with 郁, and made some phrases lost their context. Although it kinda still make sense for 忧郁 that you are rich in worries.
But this would only bother the culture fanatics I think, for people's everyday use, most won't give a damn about this kind of detail if simplified words can help them write faster.
Hell, I myself am Taiwanese, but I write simplified words in notes all the time. Like 动, 体, 边, 点, 电, 庁, 号, etc.
+u06jo3vmp I'm not even a beginner at Chinese (yet), still I think there is a lot of beauty in preserving these expressions. :) The simplifyinbof the characters apparantly doesn't change only the visual aspect of them, so I think it's very much worth it to know the traditional characters.
+ConlangFan but still it doesnt affect anyways, ur not gonna write those words 100 times a day. language isnt only for communication. btw i consider using simplified chinese is lazier.
+u06jo3vmp you want richness? then start using the Oracle Bone script, or the complicated Bird and Worm Script, or even the Bronze script would be fine. "traditional" CHinese is the simplification of an earlier forms.
The popular argument actually backfires for me lol... as someone who once went to Chinese school as a little kid... I see my Chinese friends write in the new form of Chinese, and while most characters that are changed are still recognizable, some of them become completely something else. 憂鬱 for example is changed beyond recognition; if you were to ask me to read 忧郁 I would have had absolutely no clue, since there is not a single darned trace of the original characters in them. It's not for the sake of anything else (I don't care about political motivations), it's just so that China can still maintain relations in writing with its neighbors who still use the old script or overseas Chinese that I wish they hadn't changed some characters so drastically as they did.
正體字跟簡體字都是華人的所創造的，很久以前人們已經用簡體字了，因為簡體字筆畫少，方便使用。在台灣，寫快的時候也會寫簡體字。還有，“愛”和“爱”都有自己意思。“進”和“进”也一樣。誰說這樣寫”进“是走進井口呢？怎麼不想開一點，是走出井口，不再是井底之蛙，那就是進步。憂鬱的鬱是不是讓人寫了會很憂鬱呢？自己都是華人，不用歧視排斥自己人。
问题是，清朝的繁体，相对于汉朝来说，就是简体，因为现在这繁体比汉朝不知道简化了多少。。。
照逻辑的话，为了显示正统，我们应该用甲骨文还是篆书好了。我都不明白这个繁简之争到底有什么意义。。
wow now i feel a bit better about learning traditional characters (massages wrist to prevent capal tunnel syndrome)
Honestly, if you're a westerner wanting to learn to read/write chinese it depends on why you are learning. Are you trying to do business with people in the mainland or in Hong Kong/Taiwan/Macao? Usually people that have learned traditional can usually figure out something that was written in traditional. However, it's not always the same for somebody that only learned simplified. Really, you will end up learning both in the end.
The 1984 analogy is ridiculous. "simplified Chinese" has nothing to do with the grammar or the vocabulary; you can still form the very same sentences in simplified characters. Whoever that came up with this, if you've actually read the novel you'd realise how much of a nonsensical comparison this is.
Plus, most of the new characters either come from cursive writing forms (e.g. 专,医) or ancient non-standard spellings (e.g. 叶); very few of them are actual new characters. Also, the vast majority of words remain unchanged in spelling; if you convert a piece of simplified Chinese writing to traditional scripts or vice versa, almost 70% of it will stay unchanged.
This is in general very poorly researched and presented, especially considering you've got Chinese people in the team. Outrageous, really.
温祺伟 Yes!! 草书 or cursive writing style plays an important role. Even Japanese Hiragana came from this.
shut up you communist 。may traditional characters live on forever and may the shit simplified filthy communists die！！！！！！
What can you expect from Falun Gong practitioners? They're always spreading lies and misinformation.
I can tell , you are all not linguistics major . Most simplified characters are from the book of ancient time . They are not "created " Learn more about history and language then talk about it .
Clara Zhang 笑尿，骗老外学繁体，干嘛？让老外到诈骗岛学习诈骗？
bu
da pan 第一：繁體字還是全世界的規範漢字。第二：別叫我們「老外」。第三：雖然這段視頻裡有些錯誤，但是還有道理。一些現代簡體字可能是"from the book of ancient time"可是那些字當時也不標準！繁體字/正體字/全體字 是正宗規範漢字，簡體字只是懶寫法。
The first character simplification policy in modern China was issued in 1943 by the ROC government. Many letters in the simplified version was actually taken from 草书&行书, whereas the traditional form uses 楷书&隶书, so simplification is actually the standardization of cursive form. Now for those who intend on perserving the Chinese culture, try writting in 小篆&大篆.
replacement of heart with friendship for love is actually very correct.
There are fantastic 异体字 (Variant Chinese character) dictionaries out on the internet. Look up some of the Simplified characters such as 爱 and 门 amongst others. You'll find that both the Traditional and Simplified variant were used but usually the traditional as the official form while the simplified was relegated to the colloquial or sometimes cursive form. They two both appear in Song Dynasty dictionaries.
The reason for learning simplified instead of traditional characters is PRACTICAL, not ideological. Traditional characters are not going to disappear, but would be confined to scholars, just like latin and sanskrit.
At 1:55 She said: “The newer generations only learnt the simplified versions and made it harder to read classical or historical texts. The party can then provide additive versions of the classics in simplified Chinese and average citizens are unable to tell the difference so they can't check against the original. Convenient to controll..." I smell something bullshit.
I learnt simplified Chinese and I'm now living in Hong Kong reading Traditional Chinese everyday. No problem at all. That's the subtle delicacy of the Chinese language.
BTW, I'm so glad to see the majority of people commented here are objective.
"Here is my mantra: No bitching," said Suzy Menkes.
Yes we do, that's why we teach traditional, preserving cultural heritage is important, future generations of Mainland Chinese will thank those outside of China who protected their traditions.
Don't get me wrong, traditional characters, are beautiful, but for someone like me with poor eyesight, it's hard to see characters with a lot of strokes.
Anyways. What I'm saying is: change isn't bad.
And. Where I'm from here in Texas, we use Simplified, maybe not everywhere. I still see books written in Traditional, but it's only the books that I see written in HK.
Well, for me, a Hong Kong citizen, I would comment that you would still be able to distinguish some complex Chinese characters like "窮" and "竊" by contextual reading even if you have poor eyesight. I am not sure if that applies to everyone, but it does for some of my friends who have that.
Maybe you should get a new pair of glasses.
Change isn't bad doesn't equal to change is good.
But if you're more comfortable with simplified, then use simplified. It doesn't really matter which you use as long as you have a valid reason, other than poor eyesight.
视频教学就视频教学便好，不必夹杂政治观点，否则便失了正道，有搬弄是非之嫌，更甚者用教学为幌子抨击政敌最是可恶。本节目交汉语是好的，只是观点有太多政治偏狭。若需要表达自己的政治观点，大可以去开一部政治节目，切莫在此污浊了学问。
I agree, I think you mean is bad to mix politics into your learning. Totally agree. I have taken a neutral standpoint and I am doing what any sensible student would do, just learn both. Simplified is good for trades and official paper work when dealing with china mainland, and traditional has been useful this far when contacting people online or in a personal way, also useful for other countries... I study both because I dont want to get mixed in ugly political wiewpoints and drama. Thanks for a constructive pov.
A very small correction: in Newspeak, the comparative of "good" is "plusgood," not "doublegood." The superlative would be "doubleplusgood." Think of it this way: if "A" = "good," then "better" would be "A+," and "best" would be A++." I hope that clarifies things a bit.
I'm using Traditional Chinese Characters even though all of the schools in Vietnam are teaching the simplified one. Actually, i find it beautiful.
This was just very spiteful towards the CCP. There are bad things that happen here (China) but you seriously chose this "issue" to attack them on? You had to MAKE UP a problem? Pathetically spiteful. It is so difficult to learn Chinese as a foreigner, we don't need to make it more difficult by learning traditional from the get-go. It's easy to pick up reading the traditional after you learn simplified anyway. I was going to subscribe to this channel, because I can still READ the traditional even though I only studied simplified, but not anymore. I hope others do not buy into this.
Traditional Chinese Characters is hard to learn but it's worth.
It's about history and the meaning.
totally agree! any educated Chinese should learn it!
YESSSSSSSS PRRREEAAAACHHHHH
Long story short: there are reasons to learn simplified characters.
Despite what this video says in the end, more and more people are realizing that simplified characters are here to stay, as more and more people are exposed to the system and mainland China rapidly exposes itself to the world. Thus, whether going to China as a tourist or to do business, learning Simplified does have its practical advantages. And while it might be slightly simpler to start from Traditional and move down to simplified, as someone who is learning simplified characters, I find that for reading, it's actually not too difficult the other way around.
Tbh, If I had to learn chinese in traditional characters first, I would have given up in frustration and flunked the exams on purpose. Using simplified characters made the whole learning process easier. Only the hard core academics of pedantic types would look for meaning in traditional handwriting.