How to differentiate use of 真 and 眞 ?

[calibre2001]

I've seen subtitles in shows using 眞的 rather than 真的 ? Are they identical in terms of oral usage and differ only in written form? How do I use them correctly? Thanks!

[shibo77]

They are the same character but they belong to different font styles. 真(Unicode U+771F) is how the character is displayed in a simplified Chinese font; 眞(Unicode U+771E) is how the character is displayed in a traditional Chinese font; 真 is how the character is displayed in a Japanese font.

-Shìbó

[brightoutlook]

You can see why the character is written two different ways (as well as a detailed etymological description, if you're interested), at this page:

http://chinese-characters.org/meaning/7/771F.html

[Mark Yong]

Is it the same phenomenon with 直/直 and 吴/吳?

[brightoutlook]

I'm not sure what you mean by 直/直 since they appear to be the exact same character.

I could just tell you 吴/吳 are simplified/traditional forms of the same character, but considering our subject matter, you may find the following page helpful:

http://140.111.1.40/yitia/fra/fra00523.htm

Let me warn you, it's not for the faint of heart (even if you are fluent in reading Chinese). However, I am finding that the site is very useful for those times when I encounter a character I can't find otherwise.

It's scary how many variant forms are out there. There are 17 variants of this character alone. It appears that 吴 was used for 吳 long before the PRC made it official.