Will simplified characters be useful in Taiwan?

[bieniu]

Hey

I've started learning chinese a couple of months ago in school. From day one we started learning simplified characters and I was totally ok with that. However, I've just got admitted for a semestre abroad in Taiwan. I will be living there for 5 months and it's now my main focus to be able to "get by" in Taiwan.

Now, I know that in general Taiwan uses traditional characters. But is it that 100% of the characters are traditional? How does it really look like today, in 2012? For example - are menus in restaurants only traditional? Are the documents (bank, telephone, rent agreement etc.) also only traditional?

In short, my question is in title - will simplified characters any useful in Taiwan or should I ditch them for now and focus on traditional (which, I suppose would be less useful later, when travelling or working in mainland China)?

[roddy]

Everything in Taiwan will be in traditional, but there's enough overlap that your time studying simplified won't be wasted. I'd suggest a read of this on learning traditional after simplified, and trying to use at least some traditional books or material from now on.

[OneEye]

I've lived in Taiwan for 6 months so far, and from what I can tell you'll see simplified characters in only 3 situations:

1) You happen to be in my neighborhood and walk past the building that says 27号 instead of 27號

2) You get your SIM card from 台湾大哥大 (I'd be willing to bet this is from Japanese influence)

3) You happen to see the 两岸和平 car drive past with PRC flags flying and 沒有共產黨，就沒有新中國 blasting from the speakers. Haven't seen him in a few months though.

Other than that, it's traditional all the way. You'll even run across some fun 異體字 and 俗子 fairly often, especially if you're outside of the city proper. Lots of 鷄肉, 化粧室/化糚室, etc. On the rare occasion you happen to see a simplified character, look around it and see if there are hiragana or katakana on the same sign, because odds are it's Japanese, not simplified Chinese. Japanese simplified characters are sometimes used to be "cool", PRC simplified ones are not. Why would they use mainland simplified characters here? Many people here have a severe dislike for PRC simiplified characters (which I share), though most educated people can read them if they have to.

Oh, I guess I should add 4) You're in a library.

But really, if you've only been studying for a few months, your biggest focus if you want to "get by" in Taiwan should be speech. Learn traditional characters, of course, but if your spoken Chinese is good enough you can just ask about any character you're unsure of. Even if you learn your traditional characters, you're going to come across some weird stuff. For instance 丼 is pronounced dòng at Japanese restaurants, borrowed from Japanese donburi. Plus, you're not going to be reading bank, phone, and rent agreements by that point anyway (I'm assuming your semester abroad is this year?), simplified characters or not. Fortunately, there will almost always be an option for English in these cases, or at least someone who can explain it to you in English.

[bieniu]

@roddy: thanks! Looks like it might be less of a trouble than I thought!

I do not yet know however as many words as people in this topic do. I only know maybe 200-300 characters if not less. Therefore I am pretty flexible in creating a plan for learning the language (I am leaving to Taiwan only in September).

So, since I think I'd rather avoid learning both simp and trad simultaneously (or maybe it's easier this way - what do you think?), I want to decide whether I should learn traditional and then, when I get back from Taiwan (January) try to convert what I've learned into simplified, or the other way around - learn simplified for a few more months, and then 1-2 months before departure try to convert my knowledge to traditional. What do you think would be easier?

Cause Taiwan is an episode of my life that I am looking forward to, but I think that in general simplified will be more useful for me in the future, as it seems to be more commonly used worldwide.

@OneEye: true enough that in 6 months from now I probably won't be able to read any agreements etc. So looks like my main concern would be.. idk - restaurants? maybe some announcements at school (NTU is where I will be studying)? names of the streets maybe?

I agree with you that my biggest focus should be speach. And it is. But of course some reading (less of writing though) would be useful. Actually while writing this post I thought that it might be a good idea to focus on learning traditional characters only in the areas they might actually be useful (mentioned before - restaurants, some city signs, transport etc) and omit those less important. Dunno if such a division is achievable though..

[roddy]

If, at this point, your semester in Taiwan is as far as your need for traditional goes, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Keep studying as you are, then maybe over the summer break do some work to familiarize yourself with traditional. I don't see there's any point in adding to the workload at the moment, and as you can read in that other topic, if you decide to make the switch later on it's not a massive obstacle to overcome.

[OneEye]

I'd go for one or the other, not both at once, and certainly not one in some situations and one in others. I agree with roddy, keep doing what you're doing, then learn some traditional characters over the summer.

Menus can be tough, because you often won't know what the dish is just from the name anyway. Add to that the fact that different places use different transliterations of English words (cheese can be 起司 or 芝司, latte can be 拿鐵 or 拿提, etc.), and it can get confusing. Best bet, again, is to ask, or you can point at pictures, or just order something and hope it's good. This can actually be a lot of fun. A useful sentence is 你有什麼推薦嗎？ (Do you have any recommendations?) Most people really will recommend their favorite dish, because they want you to come back. Besides, you'll pick up all this stuff fairly quickly once you're here.

Most important signs in Taipei will have Chinese and English. Street signs have pinyin. Plus, Taiwanese people are really, really friendly and willing to help you out with directions or whatever if you ask. Transportation is really convenient here, so you should have no trouble getting around. My wife does just fine and knows maybe 20 words of Chinese.

Taipei is a great city, you won't want to leave after one semester!

[bieniu]

Okey then. Appreciate all the answers! This forum is tremendous.. to this extent that I sometimes catch myself reading it instead of learning actual Chinese

Anyway, I will follow your advice guys and focus on simplified for now and then during the summer I will try to get familiar with the traditional ones.

谢谢你们都!

[jkhsu]

So, since I think I'd rather avoid learning both simp and trad simultaneously (or maybe it's easier this way - what do you think?),

Why not? The books I used had both simplified and traditional characters so it was easy to learn both. I sort of had the opposite situation as you. My classes used traditional characters but I wanted to learn simplified because I knew I'd be traveling to China quite a bit. The teacher told me that I could write my answers in simplified but that I had to be able to read the tests and texts in traditional. I ended up just learning both at the same time. Here's how I do it (assuming that you have a text book with both simplified and traditional texts): First, you should choose which one you will want to know as your "core". This will be the one that you will be able to write. In my case, it was simplified. So for every chapter, I completely learn all the simplified characters until I can read through the text for that chapter with ease. Then, I flip over to the traditional characters section and read through that part. For characters / words I didn't know, I'd refer back to the simplified section. By doing this, you are basically learning the same way as a native speaker who knows one but has to read the other. You use the context of the reading to help you learn the other.

Cause Taiwan is an episode of my life that I am looking forward to, but I think that in general simplified will be more useful for me in the future, as it seems to be more commonly used worldwide.

Every beginner struggles with this because you can't believe you have to learn both. But the truth is, by the time you are fluent and expect to use your Chinese (reading that is) in real life situations, you'll end up knowing both. If you live in the USA for example, just walk into any Chinatown or Chinese restaurant and all the menus / signs will most likely be in traditional. In overseas communities, you'll also meet many people from Hong Kong or Taiwan who use traditional. I'll bet that you will have a very different view once you come back from Taiwan.

[bieniu]

tbh i haven't considered it yet, just assumed that since simplified are used in mainland, I would use them more often. But of course, I don't know yet what I will use my future chinese skills for, so can't really decide which characters will work better for me. I can imagine that it's a hot topic amongst chinese learners, so don't want to discuss it here. I will certainly have more to say on this issue when I get back from Taiwan