Simplified vs traditional Chinese
Which HSK characters have a separate traditional form, how many strokes simplification saves, and where one simplified character stands for several.
How many characters changed
Mainland China simplified about two thousand characters in the 1950s and 1960s; Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau kept the traditional forms. For each HSK character we take its traditional forms from Unihan (kTraditionalVariant) and keep a form when CC-CEDICT spells words with it at least a quarter as often as with the character itself.
| Level | With a traditional form | Strokes, simplified | Strokes, traditional |
|---|---|---|---|
| HSK 1 | 76 of 246 | 6.9 | 13.6 |
| HSK 2 | 46 of 125 | 7.8 | 13.7 |
| HSK 3 | 109 of 284 | 8.3 | 14.3 |
| HSK 4 | 163 of 441 | 8.2 | 14.4 |
| HSK 5 | 170 of 431 | 8.9 | 14.7 |
| HSK 6 | 141 of 413 | 9.3 | 14.7 |
| HSK 7-9 | 409 of 1,148 | 10.1 | 15.7 |
Stroke counts come from Make Me a Hanzi; the averages are over the characters with exactly one traditional form.
The biggest savings
- 厅 4 strokes, 廳 25 (−21)
- 郁 8 strokes, 鬱 29 (−21)
- 观 6 strokes, 觀 25 (−19)
- 让 5 strokes, 讓 24 (−19)
- 坝 7 strokes, 壩 24 (−17)
- 灵 7 strokes, 靈 24 (−17)
- 纤 6 strokes, 纖 23 (−17)
- 体 7 strokes, 體 23 (−16)
- 兰 5 strokes, 蘭 21 (−16)
- 凿 12 strokes, 鑿 28 (−16)
One simplified, several traditional
43 HSK characters merge two or more traditional characters, or stay the same in some words: the traditional spelling then depends on the word (出发 is 出發, 头发 is 頭髮). These are not stroke savings, so they are left out of the averages above.
- 里 → 裡 and itself
- 面 → 麵 and itself
- 系 → 係 and itself
- 只 → 隻 and itself
- 发 → 發 髮
- 复 → 復 複
- 干 → 乾 幹
- 历 → 歷 曆
- 须 → 鬚 須
- 脏 → 髒 臟
- 注 → 註 and itself
- 并 → 並 併
- 伙 → 夥 and itself
- 签 → 簽 籤
- 松 → 鬆 and itself
- 台 → 臺 and itself
- 采 → 採 and itself
- 冲 → 衝 沖
- 丑 → 醜 and itself
- 斗 → 鬥 and itself
- 汇 → 匯 彙
- 卷 → 捲 and itself
- 厘 → 釐 and itself
- 舍 → 捨 and itself
How the simplification works
Most simplified characters replace a part, not the whole: the speech radical 言 becomes 讠, 金 becomes 钅, and a complex sound part is swapped for a simpler one.
Which to learn
Learn the script of the place you are aiming for: simplified for mainland China, Singapore and HSK; traditional for Taiwan and Hong Kong. Every hanzi page here teaches the simplified form and shows the traditional one next to it, and the practice viewer animates either, since Make Me a Hanzi covers 9,565 characters in both scripts.