Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese are two standard ways of writing Chinese characters. They are not two unrelated languages. A reader of one system can often guess a good deal of the other, but official documents, schoolbooks and user interfaces still pick one.
Simplified characters were promoted in the People's Republic of China in the 1950s and 1960s to raise literacy. Many forms reduce stroke count. 国 has fewer strokes than 國. Some Simplified characters merge several Traditional ones, which is why conversion is not always reversible without context.
Traditional characters remain official in Taiwan and are the usual written form in Hong Kong and Macau. Many overseas Chinese communities also publish in Traditional Chinese.
Where each system is used
- Simplified: Mainland China, Singapore, and many global products that target those markets.
- Traditional: Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and a large share of overseas Chinese publishing.
Spoken Mandarin is not the same question. People in Taipei and Beijing can speak mutually intelligible Mandarin while writing different character sets.
Examples
| English | Simplified | Traditional |
|---|---|---|
| Country | 国 | 國 |
| Book | 书 | 書 |
| Horse | 马 | 馬 |
| Door | 门 | 門 |
| Language | 语言 | 語言 |
| Study | 学习 | 學習 |
Conversion is mechanical
A converter replaces characters (and sometimes regional words) using dictionaries. It does not rewrite the sentence for a new culture. For that difference, see conversion vs translation.
To change a paragraph now, use the text converter. To change a file, use the document converter.