Is simplified Chinese the way of the future or not?

[Harpoon]

It's kind of ridiculous... 50 years ago, Taiwan and China suddenly weren't able to understand each other's writing. Hong Kong and Macau's citizens use Traditional Chinese and can't understand the PRC's writing either, even though they belong to the country. Is one of the systems going to be scrapped or is it going to stay like this?

[skylee]

Hong Kong and Macau's citizens use Traditional Chinese and can't understand the PRC's writing either, even though they belong to the country.

This is not true.

[madizi]

Just around 20% of characters is simplified, so they can pretty much understand each other.

Even Japanese, who also made some simplifications of characters, can undestand Mainland writing.

PS: Look at this thread:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/4453-simplified-characters-derived-from-japanese

[wix]

It is a total fallacy that the two systems are unintelligible to each other. Sure there might be a few characters that people get stuck on, but for the most part the simplifications follow a set of rules or are logical in some way or another.

A much better analogy for understanding the differences between the two systems would be to think of English (or another alphabetically written language) with some strange spellings. Reading one system if you are used to another might be a bit slower or seem a little strange but you would still be able to understand the meaning.

[Tsunku]

The majority of my friends here in mainland China can also read traditional script. It doesn't really seem to be that big of a deal that Taiwan and HK use them. As for scrapping one system, I really can't say whether or not Taiwan and other traditional script using places will eventually simplify, but I can say quite confidently that there is no way that mainland China is going to do away with simplified characters.

[Yuchi]

The majority of my friends here in mainland China can also read traditional script. It doesn't really seem to be that big of a deal that Taiwan and HK use them.

Yeah, when I asked my friend (from mainland) how he learned to recognize traditional, he said he just picked it up. They apparently didn't spend much time on it in school, but he is able to read it just fine.

[wushijiao]

I would guestimate that about 70% of the DVDs on the mainland use traditional characters. For foreign movies, this means you have to read traditional. So, to some degree, traditional characters are making a comeback due to pirated Hollywood movies.

However, I don't forsee publications like books and newspapers switching over any time soon.

[gougou]

I would guestimate that about 70% of the DVDs...

Yeah, I noticed that, too. Does anybody know why this is like this?

And what about Chinese newspapers outside China? It seems to me that the vast majority of these also uses traditional characters. What's the reason for that?

[anonymoose]

Yeah' date=' I noticed that, too. Does anybody know why this is like this?

And what about Chinese newspapers outside China? It seems to me that the vast majority of these also uses traditional characters. What's the reason for that?[/quote']

I guess it's because the majority of overseas Chinese communities were established before the introduction of simplified Chinese characters by the CCP, and therefore the use of traditional characters is still common practice.

Having said that, simplified characters are predominant in Singapore.

[wang0109]

i am from PRC, and i use and learn simplified chinese from young. when i was younger, i wasn't able read traditional chinese quite well, but as time goes on, i can read almost every article written in traditional chinese. however, i can read them but i can write few of them. kinda strange that you see this you know what it means or which is its simplified version but when you are given a simplified chinese character, you cannot write its traditional form.

[cutty]

This is not a problem at all. All the Chinese newspaper in US are tranditional Chinese, but I have never had any difficulty to read them from the first day. It just like even you are a native English speaker, you may still meet some words you never saw before in an article, however you can still understand the article without any problem, right? Also for most simpifiled Chinese, they are not a totally different animal from their tranditional partner. Most of them still have some similarities, when you see it, you will know it. Even you don't put it in a sentence, I think people still can get most right.

[Quest]

学 and 學

为 and 為

远 and 遠

报 and 報

时 and 時

静 and 靜

语 and 語

etc........

It takes minimal training to learn to recognize the other set.