Should you learn simplified or traditional Chinese?
Pick the script of the Chinese you want to read, then pick up the other: two thirds of a page is the same.
We make Mandarin The Wild.
Where each script is used
Simplified characters are the standard in mainland China, which set its current list of 8,105 standard characters in 2013, and in Singapore and Malaysia. Adobe CJK Type: China’s 通用规范汉字表 (the 2013 list of standard characters, 8,105 of them). Traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, and in much older writing. The HSK exam and most textbooks for learners use simplified. HSK: the official site of the Chinese Proficiency Test.
你学简体字还是繁体字？
simplified Chinese character
Also written 簡體字
How much actually changes
We took the most common characters in Chinese web text and looked up how each one is written in traditional, weighted by the words it is used in. FineWeb-2, the web text we counted (its Mandarin part, cmn_Hani).
| The most common characters | Written differently in traditional |
|---|---|
| 100 | 31 (31%) |
| 500 | 176 (35%) |
| 1,000 | 381 (38%) |
| 2,500 | 897 (36%) |
Counting every character on a page, 32% are written differently and 68% are the same. Many of the changes follow a pattern: 言 becomes 讠 (說 → 说, 話 → 话), 門 becomes 门 (問 → 问, 們 → 们) and 車 becomes 车, so learning one change covers dozens of characters.
The same is true of the words a learner meets first. Of the characters in each level's new words on the 2025 HSK list, these are written differently in traditional:
| HSK level | New characters | Written differently |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 248 | 74 (30%) |
| 2 | 123 | 48 (39%) |
| 3 | 284 | 107 (38%) |
| 4 | 441 | 165 (37%) |
| 5 | 431 | 173 (40%) |
| 6 | 413 | 142 (34%) |
The catch: one simplified character, two traditional ones
Going from traditional to simplified is easy, because a traditional character almost always has one simplified form. Going the other way is where readers slip: some simplified characters merged two or more traditional ones. Of the 2,500 most common characters, 103 stand for two or more traditional characters, each in at least one use in twenty.
我去剪头发，然后去发邮件。
hair (on the head)
Also written 頭髮
发 is 髮 in 头发 (hair) but 發 in 发邮件 (to send an email). Others are 后 (後, behind; 后, queen), 面 (麵, noodles), 干 (乾, dry; 幹, to do) and 只 (隻, the measure word). You learn these as words, not as characters, which is one more reason to read in words.
What the studies found
Readers who know one script pick up the other fast. Shown 995 simplified characters and their traditional forms, traditional readers recognised at least 85% of the simplified ones, and simplified readers at least 85% of the traditional ones; after about two rounds of being shown the right answer, they knew them all. Lin and Chen (2024), The buy-one-get-(almost)-one-free effect of learning traditional or simplified Chinese characters, Journal of Chinese Writing Systems 8(2).
Simpler is not always faster to read. In a study of more than 800 native readers and 12,587 words, simplified words, with about 22.5% fewer strokes, were recognised a little more slowly but more accurately than traditional words, and the words that were hard in one script tended to be hard in the other. Tsang, Huang, Wang, Wang and Wong (2024), Comparing word recognition in simplified and traditional Chinese: a megastudy approach, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 77(3).
A plan that fits the evidence
- Choose by where your Chinese will come from. The people you'll talk to, the shows you'll watch, the exam you'll take.
- Read in one script until it's easy. The stories in the Library are graded on the HSK; choose Characters → Traditional in Settings and the reader shows them in traditional.
- Meet the other script in real text. With Mandarin The Wild, point at a word on any page, simplified or traditional, and the card shows its meaning and how the other script writes it.
- Learn the split characters as words. 头发 and 发现 are two words; learn 頭髮 and 發現 the same way.
How we counted
Character frequencies are our engine's counts of the Mandarin part of FineWeb-2, a large collection of web pages, with traditional spellings folded into their simplified form. FineWeb-2, the web text we counted (its Mandarin part, cmn_Hani). A character's traditional form comes from our dictionary's words, character by character, weighted by how often each word is used; it "differs" when its most used traditional form is another character, and it "stands for two" when a second traditional form makes up at least 5% of its uses. HSK levels are the 2025 syllabus; a character belongs to the lowest level whose words use it.
Questions
Should I learn simplified or traditional Chinese first?
Learn the script of the place and people you care about: simplified for mainland China, Singapore and the HSK, traditional for Taiwan and Hong Kong. Two thirds of the characters on a page are the same in both.
How different are simplified and traditional characters?
In our count of Chinese web text, 32% of the characters on a page are written differently, and 36% of the 2,500 most common characters have a different traditional form.
Is it hard to learn traditional after simplified?
Not very. In a 2024 study, readers who knew one script recognised at least 85% of the other's characters, and all of them after about two rounds of feedback.
Sources
Checked on 14 October 2026. Prices and features change; tell us if one has.
- Adobe CJK Type: China’s 通用规范汉字表 (the 2013 list of standard characters, 8,105 of them)
- HSK: the official site of the Chinese Proficiency Test
- Lin and Chen (2024), The buy-one-get-(almost)-one-free effect of learning traditional or simplified Chinese characters, Journal of Chinese Writing Systems 8(2)
- Tsang, Huang, Wang, Wang and Wong (2024), Comparing word recognition in simplified and traditional Chinese: a megastudy approach, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 77(3)
- FineWeb-2, the web text we counted (its Mandarin part, cmn_Hani)