Here's a thought.

The reason Simplified scripted was invented (from what i know) is because Traditional often took to long to write.

Well now in the world of computers, it takes just as long to write a Simplified word then a Traditional word (or at least with the pinyin system). So why doesn't China just use Traditional typing, or anything printed from a computer (almost everything!) and use Simplified for when people actually have to write the language, kind of like cursive.

That way people still get to write simplified when it maters (by hand) and traditional stays well used. And from the characters I've learned, its not usually that hard to know the simplified when you know the traditional.

Anyways I know the Chinese probably wont do that, although i see why not. But i just wanted to see what peoples opinion about it would be. In the mean time we can be happy that Hong Kong, overseas Chinatowns and Taiwan still use Traditional!

Senlando:Here's a thought.

The reason Simplified scripted was invented (from what i know) is because Traditional often took to long to write.

Well now in the world of computers, it takes just as long to write a Simplified word then a Traditional word (or at least with the pinyin system). So why doesn't China just use Traditional typing, or anything printed from a computer (almost everything!) and use Simplified for when people actually have to write the language, kind of like cursive.

That way people still get to write simplified when it maters (by hand) and traditional stays well used. And from the characters I've learned, its not usually that hard to know the simplified when you know the traditional.

Anyways I know the Chinese probably wont do that, although i see why not. But i just wanted to see what peoples opinion about it would be. In the mean time we can be happy that Hong Kong, overseas Chinatowns and Taiwan still use Traditional!

A simplified character may have two or three (or more) corresponding traditional characters, although almost each traditional character has only one corresponding simplified character.(There exist some exceptions) Therefore, many Chinese on the mainland are likely to make mistakes when trying to write in traditional characters, as well as to type. Of course, if you know the traditional character, it's not so hard to know the simplified one, but sometimes the simplification seems ridiculous. For example, 乾(when pronounced gān) has become 干, which would be considered a ridiculous mistake in writing in the past. So it's a little strange to use both systems in such way.

Yeah, it takes practice.
Not that it's completely impossible though, taking myself for example.
I remember it didn't actually took me very ong to switch to Simplified
when I first migrated to China.

Wondering how it works the other way around.

LyzTyphone:Yeah, it takes practice.
Not that it's completely impossible though, taking myself for example.
I remember it didn't actually took me very ong to switch to Simplified
when I first migrated to China.

Wondering how it works the other way around.

Not that hard, I learnt many simplified characters before learning the Japanese Kanji (effectively the same as traditional most of the time, except with 學 where Japan uses学, etc). Mind you I don't have much expertise in Chinese so my opnion might not be the best..

And for users of Facebook, there's a group with the name "Chinese Writing- Traditional/Simplified, they're just fonts!" which I think sums up the whole 'traditional' vs 'simplified' arguement. And its not just a Chinese discussion, just compare old Fraktur with the Sans-serif fonts of Germany today: (in German) (one thing they don't quite have there is the 'tz' ligature that resembles an R )

Besides, at small sizes, the simplified are easier to read.

The PRC government also wants to keep Chinese orthography stable--that is, not reverting to traditional forms, but not further simplifying or using pinyin.

I like the thoughts here. Just remember, computers can easily convert between simplified and traditional. People cannot. I have met some people in China who know the traditional characters. The vast majority do not. Still, I imagine the learning curve to switch between the two is fairly minimal, since the majority of the changes were to radicals and not entire characters.

andogigi: Just remember, computers can easily convert between simplified and traditional.

In fact, not that easily. Computers are likely to make mistakes, for example, they may convert "松树" to "鬆樹", which actually should be "松樹". Even if the programmer input the word to make the computer remember the right way to convert, he wouldn't be able to include all other words such as "迎客松" and "送客松".

andogigi:I have met some people in China who know the traditional characters.

Maybe I am one of them.

andogigi:Still, I imagine the learning curve to switch between the two is fairly minimal, since the majority of the changes were to radicals and not entire characters.

And I usually have to look it up in a dictionary when I meet an ideogram ekster(Please inform me what word I should use here) that majority.

ceigered:Not that hard, I learnt many simplified characters before learning the Japanese Kanji (effectively the same as traditional most of the time, except with 學 where Japan uses学, etc).

In terms of the Japanese ideograms(if you refer to them as Kanji, then I think we have Chinese Hanzi), they have been simplified in fact. Sometimes their simplification amazingly resembles the Chinese one, for example, "國" has been simplified to "国", but sometimes not. Just think "樱", "櫻" and "桜" are the same.

"Outside" or "apart from" would work fine for ekster.

I recently was talking with a native Chinese speaker who read the hanzi well but had a harder time with hanyu pinyin. I think that for those who have learnt the characters, they are easier to read than a Romanization (besides saving space and being more traditional and beautiful.

Here's a good online dictionary with recordings of native speakers: http://hua.umf.maine.edu/Chinese/search.html

jchthys:Here's a good online dictionary with recordings of native speakers: http://hua.umf.maine.edu/Chinese/search.html

Uuu, bonega ligilo, jchthys!

I have to say that there is quite a good share of resources out for Chinese at the moment, soon it might be relatively easy to learn Chinese even if it's still very different to indo-european languages.

ceigered:I've noticed something interesting.

La ĉinaj lingvoj havas 1,000,000,000 parolantojn, jes? La ĉina ŝtato pledas por Mandarino iĝi la 'norma' ĉina lingvo en la tuto de Ĉina. Kombinu tio kun la fakto kiu estas ke iu parolantoj de aliaj ĉinaj lingvoj povas kompreni Mandarinon, kaj post kombinu tio kun la fakto kiu estas ke Mandarino komencas preni la loko de la Angla lingvo de la 'preferita dua lingvo en la laborejo'.

The Chinese languages are spoken by about 1,000,000,000 people, right? Then, the Chinese government is pushing for Mandarin to become the 'standard' chinese throughout all of the PRC. Combine that with the fact that some speakers of other Chinese languages can understand Mandarin, and then further combine that with the fact that Mandarin is starting to take English's place of the 'preferred secondary language in the workplace'.

FURTHER combine that with the fact that Japan uses Chinese characters and chinese vocabulary (for about every native Japanese word there's a Chinese word, or so they say) and same for some speakers of Korean, and you've got one hellova speaker base. With such a far reaching and influential language, what would Esperanto's future be in Asia against a mighty beast like Chinese? Could Esperanto's future uses be limited to general use only in the 'Western' sphere of influnce?

And I decided to practice some Esperanto at this late time of night too, so sorry if it's incomprehensible. (but what is 'then' in Esperanto, as in 'then look here'?)

Mandarin is used extensively throughout China, but not in the other countries. Most Vietnamese (who live just around the corner from China!) don't learn Chinese at all.

Esperanto has its place, but I feel that it's much more useful in Europe anyway.