Writing / Reading in Mainland China

[renzhe]

1) Yes and yes

2) Yes

[Kame Sennin]

Oh, that's great!

renzhe, thank you so much for your reply!

[Hofmann]

A lot of mainlanders can read Traditional and help you with Traditional also, although they might not normally write in it.

[Kame Sennin]

I see.

That's even more good news!

Thank you again, Hofmann!

[Lu]

All yes. Traditional is what is used in Taiwan, so Taiwanese people can all read & write traditional. (Some mainland people can too, but most not.)

[Kame Sennin]

Thank you, Lu.

I have more questions now :

1) are there (any) good Eng-Mand and Mand-Eng dictionaries using traditional hanzi out there? (online dictionaries or downloadable program dictionaries); could you please list the best you know?

2) Are there plenty of study materials online written in English & traditional hanzi Mandarin?

3) Are there many DVDs out there subbed with Mandarin using traditional hanzis?

(I mean both: a) American/English shows with original English audio, and B) Chinese shows with Chinese Mandarin audio)

4) Are there many modern novels/stories printed in traditional hanzi Mandarin?

[skylee]

I hope Lu won't mind that I am answering some of the questions -

1) try this and this and this.

3) Yes. and Yes.

4) OH YES. A LOT.

I don't study so I can't answer #2.

[renzhe]

I'd add this:

1) I'd also recommend MDBG (both simplified and traditional). It uses CC-CEDICT, which is freely dowloadable and used in many offline programs, do some googling.

2) Not sure about online, but for offline you could try the traditional-character version of New Practical Chinese Reader. Be careful, because the book is usually in simplified characters, but there is a traditional version available. I've had great success with this book.

3) and 4) Anything for the Hong Kong, Macau or Taiwanese market. So basically everything,

[imron]

1) Pleco is the best I know, and it also has support for traditional characters.

[Kame Sennin]

skylee, renzhe and imron, thank you very much for your help!

I will check the links right away.

[Kame Sennin]

Hmm I was just wondering...

1) are there differences in stroke order of Japanese kanji and simplified Chinese hanzi?

2) are there differences in stroke order of Japanese kanji and traditional Chinese hanzi (I mean the way they are written nowadays, not before)

[Lu]

I don't know Japanese, but I think the answer to both of your questions is Yes, for some characters stroke order is different. In some cases the character itself is written differently, kanji being less or differently simplified than Chinese simplified characters.

As to your former Q4, what skylee said. ALL books in Taiwan and Hong Kong are printed in traditional characters. That's A LOT of books.

Q3: ALL movies and tv series with any airing to speak of in either TW or HK have traditional character subtitles. So that, too, is A LOT of stuff to watch.

You don't have to worry about learning a dying language/script if you learn traditional. It's very much alive and in use, and will continue to be so for at least a few more centuries.

[Kame Sennin]

Hello, Lu!

I'm glad to hear there are many sources for improving one's knowledge of Chinese via traditional hanzi.

Thank you very much for your answer.

Also, thank you very much for your advices and encouragement!

[Hofmann]

1) are there differences in stroke order of Japanese kanji and simplified Chinese hanzi?

2) are there differences in stroke order of Japanese kanji and traditional Chinese hanzi (I mean the way they are written nowadays, not before)

It is better to look at differences according to polity rather than character set. Please look at stroke order per polity on Wikipedia if you haven't already. If I wanted to, I could be writing Traditional Chinese, but following the PRC standard, and therefore write 國 ending in 丶一. Similarly, I could write Simplified Chinese with ROC stroke order, ending 划 in 丿刂. Or perhaps I could write Simplified Chinese with Japanese stroke order, and end 鱼 with 一一一.

If you want to compare stroke orders; here is a site that teaches ROC stroke order. Arch Chinese follows the PRC stroke order, even for Traditional Chinese (unless they've updated recently). Here is a site that follows Japanese and Korean stroke order.

[Kame Sennin]

Hofmann, thank you very much for your answer, and for the links.

So I guess it's up to me to decide which stroke order to follow... hm

[Lu]

If you learn Chinese, best go with Chinese stroke order (not Japanese). You'll need a textbook and/or a teacher, they will have their ideas on which stroke order is correct. Best just follow that. In most characters it doesn't make a difference, there will only be a few over which people will disagree.

Actually I think that if you want to study Chinese, just get started. I think you have the information that would really make some difference (Mandarin vs Cantonese, simplified vs traditional), you're ready to find a class (or a book/teacher) now and start studying. A lot of questions will be answered gradually as you learn more of the language.

But of course feel free to ask more questions here if you want :-)

[Kame Sennin]

Lu, once again, thank you a lot for your helpful advices and suggestions!

I think I'm pretty sure (about 98%) that I'll study Mandarin. I think that if I will want to study Cantonese too in the near future, I'll do it then, but not now.

Also, I'm about 90% sure I'll go with traditional script now, and study simplified later.

It's just matter of few days before I make a final decision, which is by now pretty obvious.

When I start, I'll put a lot of effort into pronunciation.

I thank you everyone for your help and useful advices!

[xiaocai]

The conversion from S to T or from T to S is not really a big issue after all. You will find it much easier if you have developed a solid basis on one script, and then all will just become effortless(well, almost) and the only thing you need then probably is just enough exposure to the other script.

それじゃ、頑張ってね！亀仙人さん！

[Kame Sennin]

Thank you very much, xiaocai!

[hawkfgfs]

Hello.

I'm a native mandarin chinese speaker.and I've graduated from university for years. following is my opinion:

1)almost everyone is fluent in reading traditional hanzi.

2)almost nobody can fluently write traditional hanzi,although can fluently reading.because there are many same part between traditional hanzi and simple hanzi.but usually nobody write in traditional hanzi in life.

3) u know simple hanzi is enough if living in Mainland China .but if u living in hongkong or taiwan,u should know reading traditional hanzi.