Some Help for Moving between Simplified & Traditional Characters

(in Progress) My purpose is to offer a few practical suggestions to those who must learn to deal with both simplified Chinese characters and traditional Chinese characters (as if having to learn one form weren't difficult enough). I am not going enter into the debate between proponents and opponents of such changes (see Wikipedia article on the debate for one view on some pros and cons; more Wikipedia references to other related areas below).

Background

Variant forms of characters have actually existed for nearly as long as the characters themselves, not only in calligraphic styles (also reflected in some modern fonts), but also among everyday users of the written Chinese language. I am concerned here with the simplified characters officially adopted in the PRC, Singapore, and Malaysia on the one hand and the forms of traditional characters used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and by many overseas Chinese, on the other hand. Those who deal with materials from both communities, read older or historical materials, or even just read articles in Wikipedia (many are not in simplified characters) must find some ways to learn the different forms and make the connections between the two. By the way, those moving between the study of Chinese and Japanese face a similar problem, because although modern Japanese has also undergone some simplification on a smaller scale, the characters simplified were not all ones simplified in the PRC, nor were they all simplified in the same way.

According to the Wikipedia artilce on simplified characters, simplified characters as used in the PRC today follow a 1986 restatement with very minor changes of so-called first-round changes made in 1956 and 1964. Second-round changes promulgated during the Cultural Revolution were officially abandoned in the 1986 announcement. There are about 350 characters changed in ways with no implications for other characters and 132 characters and 14 simplified radicals (components of characters) with changes that can be generalized to even more than the 1750+ illustrative characters listed in the 1986 government announcement.

Nature of the Changes

A number of methods of simplification were used, including merger of some more complicated characters with simpler ones, substitution of a new phonetic component for the old, replacement of more complicated elements with simpler forms, elimination of whole components of more complex characters, replacement of some characters with characters newly created from existing or simplified components, and the systematic and consistent replacement of some commonly recurring components or radicals.

Some Examples of correspondence of Simplified and Traditional Characters

1. Examples of methods of simplification in English Wikipedia article on simplified characters.
2. Even more examples of methods of simplification in the (traditional character) Chinese Wikipedia article on simplified characters.
3. For a list of what characters were merged with what others see the Wikipedia article on Simplified characters associatied with more than one traditional character.
4. Some examples of simplified radicals (coming soon).
5. Examples of common characters having different forms (produced by interpolating Jun Da's simplified character frequency list with a downloaded CEDICT file) (coming soon).


Helpful Print Media & Reference Materials

Unfortunately, few Chinese-English printed reference materials show both forms of characters. Some dictionaries that do, only show both forms for the main entry of a character only, but not for character combinations or examples.

The Oxford Concise C-E/E-C Dictionary is a notable exception, showing the traditional form ( in brackets) for most simplified characters that do not just have a simplified radical or are not otherwise easily recognizable. The 3rd edition is issued jointly with the Commercial Press (商务印书馆).  Commercial Press also puts out The Pocket English-Chinese (Pinyin) Dictionary, which, though I wish were a little bigger in scope, offers similar support.

Some textbooks appear in separate editions with simplified or traditional characters (just one or the other), but this just caters to two separate markets, not helping one to learn both. Others, such as The New Chinese Practial Reader Series list the main dialogs or readings (but not all exercises) in traditional characters in an appendix. This is a step in a helpful direction, but having the texts nearer each other could be more helpful to those trying to make a connection between the two.

fortunately. there are some other printed resources, such as Claudia Ross' Chinese Grammar: A Practical Guide, which is filled with examples in both forms right next to each other.

Online Resources offer more in the way of help.

Online dictionaries: MDBG (based on CEDICT) displays both traditional and simplified for both word and character lookups. In Yellow Bridge (at least in the free version) search results are displayed only in one or the other at your choice, although once you select a single word or character, you will see both forms for the main entry, but not, for example, in the list of words starting or ending with the same characters as the word or character selected.

Annotators: Yellow Bridge's annotator (explanation) which allows you see pop-up translations and pronunciation shows both versions of the expression highlighed, regardless of which form you start with. MDBG's annotator is now available directly from the word dictionary page by clicking on the Look up all Chinese Words in a Text option. Among the options available, pop-up does not display both forms, but both the word-by-word translation option and the vocabulary list option do display both, again regardless of which form you start with. There are also downloadable versions of MDBG's and Yellow Bridge's Readers (for cost).

Popup Chinese does annotations of some news articles and other things, and both forms show (either in the annotation itself or the other form if there is one shows in the annotation). Mandarin Tool's downloadable Dim Sum annotator (and dictionary) [look for the Chinese software section in the left panel), annotations can be done of either form, but the alternative form is not displayed. On the other hand, any text copied into Dim Sum can be converted from one form to the other (though such conversions for any automatic device are much more likely to be accurate going into simplified rather than the other way around due to a number of mergers of two or more traditional characters into one simplified character [see my examples list]). Chinese-Tools also has an annotator. Several other commercial Chinese annotators/word processors are also available (Clavis Sinica, NJ Star, Twinbridge, Wenlin) and some have been commonly used in connection with some college Chinese programs, though I have not used any of them. You can also Google a phrase such as Chinese annotation tool.

For Character and Vocabulary Practice in both forms

Yellow Bridge's Language Center gateway allows access to memory game and flashcard practice for vocabulary from a large number of texts as well as to HSK vocabulary and Chinese characters by frequency, in either (but not both simultaneously in the free version). Still, this is a fabulous resource for practice in both.