Simplified / Traditional variants

[cababunga]

Thanks everyone for the input. Again model of the world in my head didn't reflect reality quite well.

Anyway, here is what I got from CEDICT (released on 2010-04-06, 97587 entries):

10942 unique pairs of corresponding traditional-simplified characters;

of which in 2657 traditional and simplified forms differ. Those make 101 ambiguous mappings from simplified to traditional and 18 ambiguous mappings from traditional to simplified.

Now, unfortunately this is not the end of the story. If we try to add here cases where traditional and simplified characters can also be similar, we get 345 ambiguous traditional to simplified mappings and 528 ambiguous simplified to traditional mappings. Such large numbers are probably in part due to typos/errors in CEDICT data itself. For example, extract says that 愛 can sometimes be used in a simplified text. Looking at what exactly the case, you can find this:

愛迪生 愛迪生 [ài dí shēng] Edison (name) / Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931)

愛迪生 爱迪生 [Ài dí shēng] Edison (name) / Thomas Edison (1847-1931), famous American inventor

I'm attaching the lists in case anyone wants them.

ambiguous-character-mappings.txt

[doraemon]

Just out of curiosity, for those of you who always read simplified (but still can read traditional), how would you feel when you're being asked to read an entire page of traditional characters? My reaction's about the same as when I see an impossible maths problem...groan...

[renzhe]

It depends on the amount of exposure you've had to them. To me, it's slower and a bit more tiring, but I can usually get through it just fine.

It feels a lot like reading simplified back when I was not as good at reading.

[doraemon]

It depends on the amount of exposure you've had to them. To me, it's slower and a bit more tiring, but I can usually get through it just fine.

Yeah, it probably just all comes down to practice and frequency of contact with them. But I really can't be bothered...

[imron]

Same as renzhe. I can usually read it, but it's much slower. Occasionally there will be words I don't get, or only get after seeing it in context a few times before it finally clicks 'oh, this is that character'.

[skylee]

Same as renzhe. I can usually read it, but it's much slower.

Read more, a lot more, and then you won't even notice that you are reading traditional. It was the same process for me learning to read simplified.

[imron]

I probably should make an the effort. I'll have to see if I can find some books to read in Traditional (I don't really like reading them on computers because they get too blobbish, and I'm too lazy to constantly be adjusting font sizes).