ou’re not alone! Chinese is known for being one of the hardest languages for English speakers to learn and decisions such as this make it seem even more complicated (incidentally, you can click the link below to discover the other languages that English speakers may struggle to pick up).
Learning Traditional Chinese Characters Vs Simplified Characters
Really, the choice of which form of Chinese characters to use or learn will come down to a range of factors that are personal to you. If you’re looking to use Chinese in a business context then you will need to consider the territory where you plan to do business and which form of the language they use there.
If you’re learning Chinese for personal use in a particular country or region then the same still applies. On the other hand, if you’re learning Chinese simply due to a love of the language, without fixed plans about where and how to use it, simplified Chinese will be the easiest version of the language to pick up.
Read more: What Is the Hardest Language to Learn?
How Easy Is it to Learn Simplified Chinese Vs Traditional Chinese?
The Foreign Service Institute ranks both Mandarin and Cantonese as Category V languages, meaning that they are among the hardest languages for English speakers to learn, requiring some 2,200 hours of study to achieve proficiency in speaking and reading. By way of comparison, Category I languages such as Spanish and French take as little as 575 hours to achieve the same degree of proficiency. For more on some of the easiest languages to learn, click the link below.
As such, you’ve already got quite a challenge ahead of you in terms of mastering Chinese. Should you really be making that challenge harder by learning the traditional Chinese characters instead of the simplified ones?
Switching from simplified Chinese to traditional Chinese means more time studying. If you opt to learn traditional Chinese, you will need to master more complex characters and more of characters overall. Neither is particularly easy for English-speakers to learn, but it’s fair to say that simplified Chinese is the easier of the two.
Read more: 15 Best Languages to Learn in 2020
Chinese Language Translation Services: Translating from Simplified Chinese to Traditional Chinese
With two written forms of the language in everyday use, professional Chinese translation requires expertise and experience in order to deliver the perfect translation. There are plenty of opportunities for those providing Chinese translation services to translate simplified Chinese to traditional Chinese and vice versa. After all, there are plenty of publications (particularly those that are online) that want to publish high quality content in both forms of the language.
Mastery of both traditional Chinese and simplified Chinese also maximises your appeal to those in need of English to Chinese translation. Some clients will need you to translate into Chinese traditional characters while others will want simplified characters. Provide both and you should have plenty of opportunities in front of you.
Traditional Vs Simplified Chinese – Final Thoughts
Exploring Chinese in both its written and its spoken form is a fascinating topic of study. From ancient roots, contemporary Chinese retains an allure that is made only more appealing to linguists by its relative complexity. Chinese might not be easy to learn if you’re a native English speaker, but it is certainly a satisfying language to study.
Your own circumstances will dictate your reasons for using and/or learning Chinese, as well as the kind of Chinese translation services that you are likely to need. This means that opting to use traditional Chinese versus simplified Chinese might not come down to a matter of choice but to one of practicality.
Whichever you decide to learn or to use, be aware of the cultural sensitivities that relate to the acceptance of simplified Chinese in different countries and territories. The matter is not without issues and it pays to be aware of them, particularly in a business context, where causing offence could mean losi