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Which is better? Simplified Chinese Character or Traditional Chinese?
Feb 12, 2009 18:41
#51  
GUEST42117 Why simplify ? To accommodate idiots like you ? Now you make so many spelling mistakes in English, I know I would never hire you. I bet you can't even speak your own mother language that well
Feb 16, 2009 21:04
#52  
GUESTMAX J While some simplified characters were adopted from conventional abbreviated forms that have existed for a long time, the vast majority of the changes made by PRC were "unnatural" such as the removal of the symbol for heart (心) from the word love (愛) into the new character (爱) without 'heart'. To many, the new 'heartless' love character is totally against with Confucianism which emphasises filial piety and humanity.[6]
Pro-Traditional commentators claim that the so-called "changes" through the history is merely alteration in writing styles, not in the structure of the characters, especially after the Qin standardization. They also claim many other simplified characters were arbitrarily designed by the government of the PRC to pervert traditional Chinese culture for political reasons in order to carry out what the PRC viewed as modernization. Despite the fact that character simplification began in 1956 and had origins going back to the early 20th century before the founding of the PRC, and that character simplification was not a part of the Old Fours nor the Cultural Revolution (both starting in the mid 1960s), they claim character simplification, "Anti-Four Olds" and the Cultural Revolution were all treacherous acts of destruction of traditional Chinese culture. As a result of such "unnatural" evolution, many characteristics underlying various Chinese characters, including radicals, etymologies and phonetics were ignored and destroyed in their simplified form. One frequently-cited example of this argument is found in the character for "sage" or "holy", 圣 in simplified and 聖 in traditional. The simplified character removed the king radical (王), replacing it with soil (土). Opponents of simplification claim that the PRC government was politically motivated to simplify this character, to devalue religions and China's imperial past ("The kings and holy men are still just soil now").[citation needed] Supporters of simplification note that 圣 (literally meaning holy) is an ancient component used in characters like 怪(literally meaning crazy), and that 圣 was used as a variant of 聖 before the Chinese Communist government even existed.[6]
Feb 20, 2009 22:58
#53  
GUEST30225 I have found that in general I do not like the simplified characters. They for the most part have destroyed the shape of Chinese Characters. However, sometimes I think that a few simplified characters have merits.
I am fluently litereate in Japanese, not so much in Chinese. As you probably know, Japanese have simplified a few of their characters. Not the the extent that China did. Japan usually simplified the character if there was a widely distributed hand-written variant(ie:学 as opposed to 學). I think 学 is easier to write, and is easier to read as there are not so many lines(you don't have to squint or have large font), and it does not really look too similar to any other character. And it does not have the unnaturally 'sharpness' that simplified chinese seems to have.
I would prefer Chinese symbols to follow that pattern. I have found that Japanese-Chinese characters still retain their traditional look even if they have been simplified. I think that the Chinese writing system should be reconciled into one system. Doing away with most of the terrible communist simplifications, but retaining some like 间 as opposed to 間 - which i have seen in traditional handwriting anyway. That way there would be only one system. Phonetic elements, meaning and asthetics would be put back into the system, and hard to read and write symbols such as 學 could be simplified.

That is my opinion anyway
Feb 28, 2009 12:31
#54  
GUEST10248 我是美國佬. =P While I respect people's decision to use simplified for it's simplicity of writing, I must say that as a non-native speaker, a great dis-service is being done to non-native chinese speakers being taught only simplified writing. I think we can learn much more about the language and meaning through traditional chinese. Also, as has been mentioned, almost all chinese people can read traditional chinese, but not all chinese people can understand simplified chinese. I have a lot of friends from Taiwan and Hong Kong, and they are totally lost when it comes to simplified chinese. I understand the desire of China's government to boost literacy via simplification of writing, but now that we type most everything on a computer, and mainland Chinese can understand traditional writing, I would like to see China return to (in my opinion) one of it's most beautiful traditions, Traditional Chinese.
Mar 15, 2009 12:24
#55  
GUEST11165 i've dabbled in both languages; now in China and Taiwan they use phonetic alphabets to learn characters, pinyin and bwo-pwo-mwo-fwo, respectively.
It would be foolish to say having a phonetical text is not useful in learning to read, or even just in reading.
of course, every tongue has its nuances; Russian conjugates.
Apr 4, 2009 17:53
#56  
GUESTTRADITI... Traditional Chinese is better then Japanese and Simplified Chinese because Traditional Chinese is original and has main modern pictures but Japaneses and Simplified copied Traditional Chinese then make the words easier but as related to the Traditional Chinese. If you know Traditional Chinese then you'll learn Simplified Chinese way easier!
Apr 6, 2009 20:45
#57  
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simplified Chinese used in mainland China, Traditional Chinese used in TW,HK&MACAU, most Chinese use simplified..anyway it depends on where you are.
Jan 31, 2011 01:54
#58  
GUEST82136 I'm American and learning Traditional Chinese. I love it so much more because it just looks much better than simplified. I had a look at my brother's book, which uses simplified, and they all looked too similar! I feel more accomplished learning Traditional too, because it feels like it has much more history to it.
Aug 1, 2012 16:54
#59  
GUEST92079 I would prefer traditional chinese, there is no culture in simplified chinese.
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