Learning Traditional characters (after only studying Simplified)

[TaxiAsh]

In recent weeks, I decided to have a look at learning traditional. (mainly because I'm toying with the idea of going to Taiwan maybe next year to study as looks unlikely to go to mainland for the foreseeable future). 

 

I assumed this would be a mammoth task, but I'm not so sure it is? Anyone share any experiences?

 

Here is what I did (after not finding much on youtube), I downloaded the TOFU hsk1-6 trad sets. And ignored any cards that are no different to see what the numbers are like (obviously there are many compound words and duplicate characters)

(in case interested, these are the figures)

Level / cards / total different ones

hsk1 / 150 / 74

hsk2 / 150 / 60

hsk3 / 300 / 162

hsk4 / 600 / 304

hsk5 / 1300 / 723

hsk6 / 2500 / not done yet

 

I went through them all and put them into categories. Radical change / phonetic component change / complete change

I've only done 1-4 so far as 4 is what I am studying for (old system) / and it took me ages!

 

-- total 600 different of the 1200 total

 

Once you remove the radical changes (easy to learn) / and duplicates etc. there are only about 170 characters that I couldn't recognise, which isn't that many out of 1200! 

 

2 people I learn with also wanted to see this info, so last night I made a little film, and thought I would share it here, in case anyone is interested. 

Looking back I missed a few of really common ones like 关 which is totally different, but I was rushing to keep the film as short as possible.

 

If anyone is interested, here it is... it's 24 mins, but the first 12mins you can rush through as I am basically saying what is in this post, so you can skip to 4 minutes to see the radical changes, then jump to 11mins 40seconds for the speeded up bit. (it's a bit messy writing, but I found it easier than switching keyboards, and helps me remember them! haha)

 

https://youtu.be/MLk2shW6TqE

 

Has anyone else got an experiences of trying to do this? (i.e. start learning trad after only learning simpl?

 

 

 

[889]

Recognizing the two different character sets in reading context is usually not a problem at all. Hardly worth a special effort. It comes pretty naturally after a while.

 

Learning to write out the other set of characters is a different matter, though. But unless you'll often be writing out characters longhand -- taking exams, for example -- learning to write out the other form may not be worth the effort, either.

 

[realmayo]

This took some searching:

https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/14713-learning-hanzi-the-eternal-dilemma-of-simple-or-traditional/?do=findComment&comment=154717

 

You might want to map your results against those that Renzhe came up with, but his has got plenty of less common characters in there too.

 

I'd echo 889 to say that it's quite straightforward, learning T after S. You'll get some "aha" moments too, like when you see the full form of 导.

 

[Jan Finster]

Nice!

 

I am planning on learning traditional characters myself later on this year. As I do not care about writing and I am not keen on SRS, my approach would probably be to read easier lessons on TheChairMansBao in traditional and work myself up from there. Probably I will first read them in simplified and right after that in traditional.

[phills]

I tried to learn traditional last year, after learning simplified.  I boiled the difference down to a list of 510 characters.  The rest of the differences I considered formulaic enough (swapping a radical for a simpler one that looks mostly like it), that it didn't require a special effort to memorize.

 

It mostly worked, but I shelved the project because it was causing me to confuse some simplified characters and slowed down my reading speed of simplified characters.  I resolved to revisit after my reading ability improved.

 

I don't remember exactly how I compiled the list now, but I did start from looking through stuff on the threads here.  I might have used renzhe's list as the base.  510 is the number I cut it down to, out of 4000-ish characters that I know. 

 

It seems most of the idiosyncratic differences are front-loaded though, because looking through the list, if I limit it to the most common 2000 characters, the list is still 410 in length.  That's not surprising in language matters, since common things tend to be irregular, while uncommon things tend to be regular.

 

170 sounds on the light side to me though.  There are some out of the 500 I could guess even without learning it, but to be safe I added it to the list.

[TaxiAsh]

On 3/10/2022 at 11:40 AM, phills said:

I tried to learn traditional last year, after learning simplified.  I boiled the difference down to a list of 510 characters.  The rest of the differences I considered formulaic enough (swapping a radical for a simpler one that looks mostly like it), that it didn't require a special effort to memorize.

 

It mostly worked, but I shelved the project because it was causing me to confuse some simplified characters and slowed down my reading speed of simplified characters.  I resolved to revisit after my reading ability improved.

 

I don't remember exactly how I compiled the list now, but I did start from looking through stuff on the threads here.  I might have used renzhe's list as the base.  510 is the number I cut it down to, out of 4000-ish characters that I know. 

Yes, I think once I go through hsk5 and 6, it will be about 500 ish based on the figures so far. 

 

Good point about slowing down simpl, I think I will just look at them in the flashcards and maybe not actively learn them. Then hopefully I might recognise some as I see them. 

I see a lot in one of the groups I am in, as most of the american canto speakers learning mandarin use them, so most common ones I can read no bother. 

 

I couldn't unzip renzhe's list ?

[realmayo]

On 3/10/2022 at 4:58 PM, TaxiAsh said:

I couldn't unzip renzhe's list ?

Can you unzip far enough to see four ".tab" file? Those can be opened via notepad (if you're using windows, anyway).