Chinese Conversion

Why One Simplified Chinese Character Can Have Several Traditional Forms

When characters were simplified, some Traditional characters that used to be distinct were merged into one Simplified shape. Going back to Traditional Chinese therefore requires a choice.

A well-known case is 后. In Simplified Chinese it can stand for the honorific 后 and for 後 ("after," "behind"). A converter uses surrounding words to guess. In a personal name, the guess can be wrong.

发 is another example: 發 (to issue, to develop) and 髮 (hair) both became 发. Phrase tables help on common words such as 头发 → 頭髮.

What this means for software

OpenCC is good on ordinary prose. It is weaker on rare names, poetry and mixed classical Chinese. That is a limit of dictionaries, not a reason to convert by hand one glyph at a time.

What you should do

Convert with the matching regional type, then search the output for 后, 发, 面, 干 and other known mergers. The proofreading guide has a wider checklist.