<p>When students go to Chinese school, etc., are they learning traditional or simplified form? What form are Chinese newspapers in? I'm basically also wondering whether it's more beneficial to learn traditional or simplified.</p>
<p>mainland china uses simplified while taiwan and hongkong uses traditional. so it all depends on whether ure more interested in mainland or taiwan and hongkong</p>
<p>Harder, but better, to learn traditional and more useful in the long run. You can always go one way t -> s. But it is much hard to go the other s -> t.</p>
<p>Chinese newspapers in the US are typically traditional. And in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, etc. Mainland China? Simplified.</p>
<p>
[quote]
mainland china uses simplified while taiwan and hongkong uses traditional. so it all depends on whether ure more interested in mainland or taiwan and hongkong
[/quote]
</p>
<p>But you get all if you learn traditional. For the reason I said about much more easily going one way, but not the other.</p>
<p>I learned traditional but usually have no problem understanding simplified. However, I've heard of reports of people going the other way around.</p>
<p>With a Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese should look quite familiar - it just looks like they've taken some shortcuts here and there. For example, instead of using four dots, you'd see a dash, and instead of seeing a grid made of many lines, you'd see a slash. Of course, there are many less obvious things, but you can all figure them out quite easily.</p>
<p>Taking a look at the places that use simplified vs traditional, I think traditional is more useful. Also, remember that Japanese Kanji is almost identical to Traditional Chinese (so that's a plus there).</p>
<p>My parents learned simplified and they don't have any issues understanding traditional. And with what Chinese I do know, I don't have issues understanding traditional either.</p>
<p>Eh, traditional seems more of a hassle to write though. But I guess I wouldn't know since I don't write in it.</p>
<p>Traditional is more of a hassle to write. However, it looks cooler on paper.</p>