Chinese Translation Services

Difference between Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese

Simplified and Traditional Chinese are the only two written types of Chinese. Chinese has tens of thousands of characters that can be used to write single- and multi-character words. The way about 500 of these characters are written differs between the two written forms of Chinese. When producing materials for audiences in mainland China, Singapore, and foreign organizations like the UN and the World Bank, simplified Chinese should be used.

Traditional Chinese is the standard for audiences in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau, and foreign immigrant communities. The way Chinese is spoken is a little different. Although there are various dialects of spoken Chinese, Standard Mandarin is the only one that is widely spoken by Chinese around the world, and it is the official language of the People’s Republic of China, which is taught in schools and used in government.

Because of the large immigrant populations that continue to speak Cantonese, standard Cantonese is widely spoken outside China. Other dialects are becoming increasingly widespread because of recent immigration patterns. Cantonese and Mandarin (also known as Putonghua or “Common Speech”) share the same basic writing language, which can be written in Simplified or Traditional characters. There are some variations in vocabulary and language structure between the two dialects, in addition to pronunciation.