My focus is Taiwan and Traditional Characters but all resources use Simplified

[Alfred R Baudisch]

Hey!

 

I've been studying Mandarim for the past 2 months and so far I have studied only pronunciation of individual syllables and around 180 characteres using a custom made Anki deck. When dealing with Hanzi, I put the simplified and traditional side by side. But I'm finding that kind of overwhelming and I want to put only the traditional one. So far so good, because I am the one building the deck.

 

But I want to move on and grab some grammar books and online courses, but everything is made using Simplified characters. I bought Glossika and at least they use Simplified and Traditional.

 

Any recommendations on traditional Hanzi resources? And even any tips on how to take these courses/books and "mentalize"/work with Traditional?

 

Thank you.

 

PS: Damn typo on the title and I can't update it.

[stapler]

When you start to learn Chinese, unless you're actually in Taiwan, it's probably best to just learn simplified characters then later learn traditional characters. As you realise by far most of the learning material is now in simplified characters. After your Chinese gets better start learning traditional characters. It's quite easy to learn the other style of characters once you're familiar with the other. Learning one or the other does not commit you to a different form of Chinese. Personally I'm learning both and and it's not problem at all. But I only started learning both once I was familiar with say about 1000 characters.

 

That said, if you're opposed to learning simplified characters I can tell you that most American textbooks (which are often better than Chinese ones I think) come in both traditional and simplified forms.

 

The Integrated Chinese series seems very much the same as the New Practical Chinese Reader. Both of these pretty standard beginners textbooks. Integrated Chinese comes in traditional or simplified. I've heard the NPCR does too, but it might be quite hard to find.

 

For intermediate texts there is David and Helen in China. That also comes in traditional and simplified.

 

And I would strongly recommend you look into the DeFrancis Beginning Chinese Reader - It's 800 pages of dialogues and monologues, all in traditional characters.

 

Finally, I believe there are tools around which can automatically convert Chinese between traditional and simplified in your browser for when you read online.

[oceancalligraphy]

You'll just need to find resources from Taiwan!  ^_^

 

Some textbooks used at language schools in Taiwan are available directly from the publisher: CCBC Publishing at Amazon.com. There are probably already made Anki decks for the textbooks.

 

There is also material available from Taiwan's Overseas Community Affairs Council e-Learning website. 

 

The Mandarin Training Center at National Taiwan Normal University has online classes - either 1-on-1 or a group of 2.

[Demonic_Duck]

When you start to learn Chinese, unless you're actually in Taiwan, it's probably best to just learn simplified characters then later learn traditional characters.

Not necessarily true, it all depends on your reasons for learning. If you're interested in travelling to (or even potentially living and working in) Taiwan but have little or no interest in travelling to mainland China, it makes perfect sense to start with the traditional character set.

 

Unfortunately I can't really recommend any materials that use traditional characters, as I've never used any such resources for study myself, but they definitely exist. Would recommend doing a forum search, I'm sure there are a ton of threads on this topic.

[Angelina]

Any recommendations on traditional Hanzi resources?

 

Music videos, TV shows and films using traditional characters subtitles. Most films in HK, China, Taiwan would have subtitles, you just need to make sure they are using traditional characters. 

 

Plus what yst recommended. 

[wibr]

What exactly are you looking for? While I found that many ressources are in simplified characters I currently have more than enough traditional learning material. Glossika, De Francis Chinese Reader, "Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammer" by Claudia Ross, textbooks, children's books from Taiwan, TV-Series from Taiwan, all sitting on my shelves or harddrives, just waiting to be used

[lechuan]

MTC has online courses in Tradtitional: https://online.mtc.ntnu.edu.tw

There are also a number of textbook series in Traditional. Integrated Chinese, Routledge, Practical-Audio Visual Chinese, Far East Everyday Chinese, etc.

[peas02]

Use pleco's flashcards, or check out Memrise (as there are some courses in traditional characters there e.g. TOCFL). There's a lot of videos on youtube  with traditional character subtitles, e.g. Animal Planet/discovery documentaries.

 

People say it's easy to switch from simplified to traditional, and even thought it's prolly easier to go that route than to do it vice versa – it's still certainly not easy. I studied Chinese with simplified characters for 5 years before I came to Taiwan 2 years ago, and it took me a year or so before I was comfortable reading traditional. Maybe I'm a slow learner, but all those extra strokes really confused me. And my reading speed is still much slower when reading the traditional ones. 

[Demonic_Duck]

Why should it be easier to switch from Simp to Trad? Intuitively, it should be easier to go in the other direction, as there's more of a logical progression in that direction (insofar as the simplifications can be called "logical", at any rate).

[studychinese]

You can use the tongwentang extension for Chrome and Firefox to effortlessly change from traditional or simple character sets on Web pages with one click. Very handy.

[Kobo-Daishi]

There are plenty of Taiwanese dramas and all with subtitles in traditional characters.

 

Also, Hong Kong television. Just ignore the audio.  

 

Kobo.

[Nikolaj]

As far as traditional character textbooks go, you should probably choose one of either Practical Audio Visual Chinese (實用視聽華語) or Far East Every Day Chinese (遠東生活華語). If you've just studied for two months you should probably start with the first one of either series. PAVC is probably the most widely used of the two in Taiwan, although some schools use FEEC, and some use PAVC for basic classes and FEEC for supplementary classes. In fact, it's not a bad idea to use two textbooks, but if you want to stick to just one for now, I'd probably go with PAVC. PAVC includes a CD (and slightly out-of-date, but still useful videos can be found on youtube), and while FEEC also have CDs, they have to be bought seperately.

 

Both series are available on Amazon, but can also be found on www.books.com.tw, where they're cheaper (but postage might not be). If you know someone who lives in Taiwan, your best best is to have them buy the book(s) and ship them to you.

 

As far as dictionaries and such go, I'd recommend Pleco. I bought the professional bundle when starting to learn Chinese, and I've been using it ever since.

 

There are also plenty of traditional characters graded readers available, although not nearly as many as in simplified, of course. Since you just started learning, it might be a bit early still for those, but let me know if you're interested and I can give you some titles.

 

Comics are good for learning, too, and are cheap and widely available in Taiwan, so it should be possible to find something to suit your interests. I'd read a couple of graded readers first, though, before going on to comics.

[Meng Lelan]

SlowChinese has simp and trad options, just click on what you want. DeFrancis readers are all in trads, that was my very textbook I started with over 25 years ago. 

[Larry Language Lover]

Try this website.  It is from Taiwan and all in traditional and for all levels of learning:

 

https://www.huayuworld.org/material-download.php

[imron]

7 years later, I'm not sure if OP is still going to need it

 

I guess the post before yours that woke this thread up was spam.  Gone now.

[Larry Language Lover]

Dang! Didn't notice the date on this one!  LOL

[Tan]

In fairness, I was here to ask the same thing! ?

平心而论，我也是来问同样问题的！

[TheBigZaboon]

Look through all the previous replies and they'll give you the names of most of the MAJOR textbook series using Taiwanese Mandarin. But keep in mind, as this is an old thread, that PAVC is now in it's third edition. And the newest member of the club, not included in the answers above, A Course in Contemporary Chinese from the MTC, is now cycling through its second edition. CCC also has its own phone-based app, as well.

 

And another thing to help you in your quest is, as I've mentioned before, because mothers with Taiwanese backgrounds in the US never, ever, ever give up, most American textbook series will have either  traditional characters on the facing page, or completely separate volumes dedicated to simplified or traditional characters.

 

Come back and tell us what you found...

 

TBZ