Simplified or Traditional

Well as long as it isn't Cantonese!!
And this is odd considering you're Chinese

Im so sorry Danny but I cant answer your question, (still trying to learn Japanese myself. lol) I don't know what im talking about but if I HAD to answer i would say simplified Chinese. Then again traditional might be better, either way might bring more traffic to DC.

As for the pic."That guy definitely has a nice and cozy place to sleep for the night!..(Water bed)

I learnt Simplified chinese back when I was in Singapore, but some of the translated comics I read were in traditional chinese, so I'd flip the dictionary (at the time no convenience of internet) just so I can get thru words I don't understand lol. If anything I'd vote simplified Chinese ^^;

erm about the characters, I'm not sure about that because I'm Malaysian Chinese and learning method is follow the China one. China now all using simplified one, Hong Kong (part of China) erm...i think still using traditional, and Taiwan current is using traditional characters.

Well I can read most of both characters, simplified from school and traditional one from TV, yup, hong kong's movie.
I read subtitle when i watching movie even i understand what them sayin' XD

When I browse around the internet for anime stuffs I come across more traditional than simplified sites. But I think it would be better to set up a poll to see if more Chinese-speaking figure collectors use traditional or simplified characters.

Go with Traditional. More people in the world read Simplified because it is the script used in Mainland China, but I would stick with Traditional because I feel that you would probably have a much stronger reader-base in Taiwan and Hong Kong because of the subject matter.

Despite only knowing Traditional, I'd give my vote to Simplified. Traditional Chinese is hard to read if you've only learned simplified, whereas Simplified is basically shorthand version of Traditional.
you and I can usually read Shorthand with a little guessing here and there. The same rules apply for Traditional-transitioning-to-Simplified people.
Though, in my opinion, Traditional is alot prettier and easier to understand origins.
It's like seeing a work of art, sometimes. (ex: the word for turtle...)

also, I'm learning Mandarin from Taiwanese textbooks, and those tend to use Traditional. China's textbooks differ with company. And newspapers here almost always have Simplified but the manga I read are in Traditional. That would probably reflect how, over time, Simplified has become more and more popular as society attempts to speed up the process of writing.

So, I'd say Simplified best for your purpose.
But if you go with Traditional, I'd be doubly happy.

Not much different... I learnt simplified at school, but somehow I could recognize traditional characters. But most chinese books I've read are published in traditional characters...

The different between simplified and traditional is the way you write it. Other than that, there's no different...

I am Taiwanese, so I would vote for traditional!

i grew up with it, so I would be the most used to it.

can't do much about the translation but i can give my opinion: simplified would be much better. a lot of people i know, even those strong in Chinese language, don't know the traditional characters well enough. those who do are the ones who read the Chinese-translated manga sold here. the main difference between the two are simply the character strokes , grammar-wise no difference in usage.

I think it depends where most of the chinese visitors are from. If there are more chinese visitors from mainland china, then simplified. If there are more from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and other parts of the world, then traditional.

simplified preferred for me. but wouldn't be a difficulty for me to read traditional though. but I'd prefer to read in English of course. ^^

My vote goes to traditional. If you break down your target audience, I would think it ranks like this (in terms of popularity): Taiwan, Hong Kong, and then China. Both Taiwan and Hong Kong uses traditional, so you'll satisfy most of your target audience. I would argue that most overseas Chinese (i.e., those born in Canada or the USA, like me) who learned Chinese would've learned the traditional system as well. Of course, we would prefer the English site, so we wouldn't be your target audience anyways.

the first pic of miku in the KNIGHTS gallery is great ^_^
"If you don't behave yourself and quiet down, we'll never get our chance, will we?"
stickers: "Completely Sound Proof" "No Singing Allowed"

...as for chinese... i'm at level 0 ^_^;;

I read traditional, it's easier for me to check the dictionary if I don't know a word...but I can read some simplified as it's somewhat an easier transition from traditional to simplified than vice versa...

I learned a bit of Chinese in elementary school but forgot it really fast. >.>
Anyway, aren't most Chinese websites in Traditional? I heard that people who can read simplified can most likely read/guess the traditional from surrounding words? xP idk just guessing around

As for the translation, i can sorta translate it from Japanese to English then to my miniscule Chinese vocabulary.. :P

No habla espanol lol. Can't read/translate any eastern language...yet.

I can read both, but for simplicity's sake, go with Simplified - anyone who can read Complex can usually do Simplified, but not vice versa.

I vote for traditional. Sadly even though I am Chinese I can read neither and my skills in Cantonese have slipped to that of a first grader in recent years.

I was born in mainland China, I speak Mandarin but I can read both. I'm currently translating F/HA from traditional Chinese to English. However, I can't type in traditional Chinese, only simplidied.

For the second question, it's very unfortunate that I don't know Japanese T.T

traditional > simplified...if u can read traditional then u can read simplified so i think itz better to use traditional

my translation skillz aren't up to par cuz i moved to canada from HK a long time ago so i can only really speak it and read to some extent...XD

For the GSC site, go with traditional. Most people from mainland can read traditional, but for some bizarre reason people who grew up with traditional can't read simplified (from personal expderience at least)

i know traditional and i find it hard somtimes to understand simplified characters.
its hard to sometimes tell wat a simplified character is coz its all different ><"

The way that we do it on Wikipedia is people can choose a setting to automatically change the character set on the Chinese Wikipedia (zh) to where they can get traditional (zh-tw), simplified (zh-cn) and a few others. This can be done by using both cookies and also user account based. Also, perhaps have a link where users who want it in traditional can have the website "transformed" to show the text.

We only study simplified Chinese in schools, but I learn how to read Traditional Chinese through the manga available here.
I read much T.Chinese (compared to my friends anyway)...but of course, if there are too many strokes, I see many stars. =P

So I'll be fine with either, though I like reading Traditional Chinese more.
I can type both Simplified and Traditional Chinese too. (You can tweak it in your Control Panel) =)

Bust Revolution!

Traditional chinese are normally seen on Taiwan/HK release manga. The obstacle of reading Simplified or Traditional chinese can be overcome by common sense for most native chinese speaker, that's because Simplified chinese character derived from Traditional chinese character.

IMHO, Traditional chinese character has remained & retained the very meaningful meaning of what a single character mean as compare to the Simplified chinese. But Simplified chinese is the future as it gradually gaining popularity ever since mainland China adopted it to be the nation chinese word format.

I would prefer to be in Simplified chinese as mainland China are using them, consider the population of the whole China alone, the reason is obvious ;-)

traditional chinese for sure because thats how chinese should be written. no offense, i think simplified chinese ruined the beauty of the chinese characters. most people i know would rather read traditional chinese.

You may code your site to including both simplified and traditional with changing between Big5 and GB2312. In terms of Chinese Grammar, they are the same (dialects aside). They even look simliar most of the time. Traditional being more complicated than simplified, DUH. Naturally Mainland chinese tends to read simplified websites more, and HK/Taiwan/Oversea chinese tends to read traditional more. For fluent speaker/reader of chinese, should be able to comprehend both simplified and traditional chinese.

Thanks for the feedback so far - keep em coming.

Anyone know what is the "banana" means for Chinese who can't speak/write/read Chinese?

It's a crapshoot TBH. Someone people can read simplified but can't read traditional, some people can read traditional but not simplified, others can read both without problems. The best idea would most likely to look at the IP range of your readers and go from there.

Simplified takes less strokes for each Chinese character.

Personally, as some one learning kanji, I can't stand Simplified Chinese. The Japanese simplifications tend to be very natural and the radical etymology is clear. On the other hand, most of the uniquely Chinese simplifications seem horribly arbitrary, lose most if not all of the identifiable radical etymology that's so important in memorizing characters, and, more my personal opinion, it's awfully ugly.

Of course, that's just my take on it. What's best for your site? Well, do you know if you're being blocked by the Great Firewall? ^^;

Simplified should be fine for a website, hence alot people who can read traditional can also read english. if its a site to let's say...... promote products to main land china then simplified would be ideal.
also if u need help with translate i can do some eng >> chn =X

So, not a frequent commentator, as I prefer my wallflower status, but I felt this subject needed my input. I've always felt that going from traditional to simplified was like taking a step backwards. It's similar to how people in Japan are losing their literacy because so much is written in Katakana or hiragana that nobody really knows Kanji anymore. Going from Traditional to Simplified, which maybe not the same as Kanji to Katakana is something along the same lines, where we're taking a step back and basically lowering the literacy of the populace. It's almost like putting words such as "hella" or "aite" etc into the English dictionary. Sure, it's shorter, and easier maybe, but so what? It's not English, it's slang. I've always felt that traditional Chinese writing has a foundation, a history in the nation, and well, it's really a shame to throw all that away just for convenience. Plus, Traditional Chinese is MUCH cooler looking. Why would you want the ugly simplified text?

I was taught traditional in college, though the teaching materials were simplified. Justification was that it was easier to extrapolate the meaning of a simplified character if you knew the traditional rather than the other way around. Didn't pass my Chinese class, so I don't think I would mind either one -_-;;

I agree with a lot of what people have said, but here's my bit:

In terms of grammar, there is no difference between simplified and traditional. Despite all the different spoken dialects and even writing styles, Chinese is the same in terms of written syntax. The difference is simply stroke number and appearance - almost everyone agrees that traditional looks better. Some, like me, would go as far as to say that simplified is ugly. But whether a language looks nice or not isn't your concern.

What IS important is your demographic. Although a lot of people claim that people who learned traditional have an easier time reading simplified than the other way around, from personal experience and friends I know I can tell you that's simply not true. I was taught traditional - and I can't read simplified at all. It's a toss-up, so you can't exactly choose one and assume more people can read it.

So here's the thing: exactly what Chinese are you catering to? There's a strong, existing market in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and both use traditional. (Many overseas immigrants will also belong to this group since they come from these two places, but they'd prefer English anyway so they're not a concern.) On the other hand, mainland China does use simplified, and while the market's pretty tiny in terms of sheer population there's no comparison.

My suggestion? Go for traditional. I admit I may be biased, but right now most of the people that will use the site will read traditional. If you really want to reach the mainland then you can add support for it later.

My attempt on Danny's example:
Simplified:
取自于「織澤あきふみ」的原作游戏,『ユニティマリアージュ～ふたりの花嫁～』,紧接着「ユニティユーノ」的推出,「ユニティメイ」也已被立体化!以同样的华丽手工雕刻而完成,不但完美地搭配着「ユーノ」,「メイ」酷的性格也从脸部表情细腻地展现出来.
她的大型日本大衣也能够被取出,让您欣赏她那穿着漂亮和服的美妙身段!

Traditional:
取自於「織澤あきふみ」的原作遊戲,『ユニティマリアージュ～ふたりの花嫁～』,緊接著「ユニティユーノ」的推出,「ユニティメイ」也已被立體化!以同樣的華麗手工雕刻而完成,不但完美地搭配著「ユーノ」,「メイ」酷的性格也從臉部表情細膩地展現出來.
她的大型日本大衣也能夠被取出,讓您欣賞她那穿著漂亮和服的美妙身段!

Dunno if I've got the gist of it though... =P

hm....simplified and traditional chinese
some may differ very much, but some are still much the same
but i think people who can read traditional can also read simplified, but not the other way around.
Or you can provide both version ^^

To be honest both simplified or traditional is fine, as long as you go with which ever you think it's cool. However, I believe these days the younger generation are used to the simplified.

Nice bust btw... XD

Hmmm you should go with simplified. I know a lot of overseas read in traditional (me included) its not very difficult to read simplified as the character changes are easily deduced (as its meant to) but I know a few of my friends who grew up on simplified can't read traditional. So if you go with simplified both parties should be able to read.

Traditional gets my vote, being overseas born asian. I learned when I was kid, can read 80-90% of a newspaper in HK. but simplified chinese?? not even 10%

my point is, only chinese from China know simplified. all the other chinese use traditional.

I was taught how to read and write chinese using traditional chinese in school. I know a little bit of simplified chinese but most of the people I know who really are good at chinese use simplified when writing. And I don't think there is a difference in grammar. Just how you write it I think.

Traditional... I doubt the large population of China who use simplified would be into figures anyway.
If they did.. then
The way for me to decide would be, since mainland China is the largest population who uses simplified, while the remaining other Asian countries (i think) use more traditional. Based on this, compare China to the rest of the Asian countries to see who purchases the larger percentage of figures.
If China more, then use simplified, if not use traditional.

Another thing... most of the older generation use traditional (highly doubt they are into figure collecting), while younger generation use simplified.

Sadly I am not fluent in Chinese and have not had the opportunity to do so. In terms of Danny's question, I'd say Traditional because it has a wider readership but, simplified would not be bad either ^^;
I guess it's a majority vote.

Unfortunately, I am only able to read elementary characters. So my opinion of which would be better is rather mute. How about neither, and we go with Chingish slang:

"Gootsmile figure-ah, ho Yeah-ar! Danny so Man." *Ok that made my head dizzy*

I speak Cantonese, and I use traditional Chinese. I don't have problem reading simplified Chinese if it is a sentence (with content), but I can not identify if it is just a single word ^^; I think simplified is the better way to go with, because I think people who use simplified have more difficult time to understand traditional. Actually, I prefer reading traditional, but I can still read simplified Chinese.

I'm originally from HK, so I'd have to say traditional. It's a pain for me to read simplified as I usually end up going "How the hell is that supposed to mean that? they don't even look similar!". In terms of viewership, I think traditional is better.

Some of the simplified characters don't even look like the traditional characters. Though more people probably ready simplified, you'd have to look at who your customer would be. If targetting China, then simplify etc.

Via Wikipedia, Simplified Chinese is promoted by the Beijing, China govt. ... while the Taiwanese were the ones sticking to Traditional Chinese.

I'd vote for the simplified Chinese for simple reasons:
1) its easier to read and write.
2) web-base sense, Simplified Chinese shows on-screen better and easier to read. the Traditional Form of Chinese would be too clutter as a single character on typical interfaces.

It really depends on your target audience. If your main visitors are from China, Malaysia and Singapore, simplified Chinese will be your best choice. If they are from Hong Kong, Taiwan and the rest of the world, you can't go wrong with traditional Chinese.

Growing up in Singapore, I was educated in simplified Chinese. However, I had to force myself to learn some traditional characters or make smart guesses at times when reading translated mangas or articles from the Internet.

Basically, there are no "grammar" differences between the two when used formally.

I vote for Traditional. But I suggest, if its possible to do both. Since the younger generation knows the Simplified version more.

I think simplified. Or both. I rarely see websites that only use traditional Chinese.

After I've had my lessons I'm gonna be able to read/speak/etc! GAH Monday can't come quick enough.

From what I learned back then, traditional Chinese has more steps in writing than normal Chinese... and that's about it.

There are no grammar differences, just characters are written differently. Code the site to switch between both - I know online Chinese dictionaries often have this system to cater to both writing systems. I grew up learning simplified because my family is mainland, but in college I'm learning both systems. I can easily understand spoken Chinese so I'm focusing on reading/writing now. My Japanese is about the same level, so if I put in the effort I could do Japanese -> Chinese translations.

And trust me, the otaku market in mainland China is HUGE, it's just underground. Lots of pirating and proxy websites because of government sanctions (they want to popularize homegrown animation and limit foreign ones, but that doesn't mean people want to stop watching anime). Taiwan/HK are kind of like the media gateways for the mainland, so I feel that having both simplified and traditional is the best.

here in the Philippines we were thought traditional and simplified. i'd say everyone must learn both. but i'd prefer the traditional chinese cause its fun to write

Either way should be fine. It's fairly simple to read Traditional from only Simplified knowledge and vice versa. I'm not exactly saying from personal experience, since I'm quite a n00b a Chinese, but I know people (including my mom), who can read both. There's quite a few common patterns between the two, so guessing shouldn't be too hard.

hi danny:
it is very simple. if you want to learn to read chinese the easy way then use simplyfied. i pick it up quick in a couple year....but some i still cant read.
if you have time then go with trdational will take a lot of time.
Hong Kong Canto chinese is way too hard for me to pick up. the structure is very hard for me to understand....lived there for 1.5 year still cant pick up canto....

anyway sometime i mix it.

also there is a reason why most chinese sub manga is in tradational is because it is mostly done in taiwan for taiwan readers...which they use tradational.

as for the mainland chinese simplyfy is the only way to go. my sister had a very hard time picking up simplify chinese while studying there.

try to use this site http://us.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php it is a great help for me when i have to write reports for work.

I believe that simplified chinese is the way to go. most chinese in the world with the exception of taiwan and hong kong speak simplified chinese. Of course, you might want to put up 2 sites, one with simplified and one with traditional chinese.

correct me if I'm wrong, but if you have a site using either simplified or traditional Chinese, it won't be a problem to translate the other with word substitution. sentence structure syntax and grammar would remain the same. so all you'd need is to translate it automatically by using software like this: http://www.kanhan.com/webpage/eng/index.php

i can read both simplified and traditional Chinese.
i vote for GSC to use simplified Chinese, personal preference. i believe most chinese should be able to understand both. so no biggie. ^^;

No grammars difference, no pronouce difference (in mandarin), they are same except traditional needs more strokes to complete a character. Simplifed characters is simplified from traditional characters.

For me,
I usually can read and write both characters. Initially learn simplified since young then traditional by reading newspaper as most are printed in traditional characters.

Use Simplified because...

1.3 billion people using simplified > a few hundred million traditional. And plus..nothing to do with typing chinese since its all the same, simplified is easier to read, looks a lot cleaner, and i only know simplified lol

i can read both, i think there is no much difference for me.

We Chinese 聪明 one
Old and New can read one.
Simplified Chinese used by PRC which is China and Traditional Chinese use by Taiwan.
SEA country all use Simplified Chinese.
Conclusion: DANNY go ahead with Simplified Chinese.
Most visitors here PRC because this site don't have Taiwan readers.(Maybe got correct me if i wrong)

I'd personally go with traditional, as that's what I grew up with and am still using. Though as someone above suggested, the best way to accommodate both sets of readers would be to use an adaptable script like the one used in Chinese Wikipedia.

I blame petty politics for the sundering of the 2000-year-old unified (though constantly evolving) Chinese script into two. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I vote for traditional chainese. The Grammar is exactly the same, except the characters. However, there my be some localize phases that are specific to Taiwan, Hong Kong or Mainland China.
Keep in mind that most people who can read simplified have no problem reading traditional. However, the reverse is not exactly true. This is from personal experience.
Also, keep in mind your target market.
If the market expended enough, I think eventually, you will have both pages, it is just translating the BIG to GB code, no need to rewrite anything.

I have a friend at work who is originally from China, and I can tell you she herself is able to read Kanji, it was amusing watching her translate from my kanji study books.:D We talk alot about certain cultures and how they relate and how they are different.:D

Absolutely none of my Chinese friends at the university use traditional. All of them use simplified. I recently installed XP for a Chinese student and asked her if she used the traditional MUI for XP of simplified. She told me that no one uses traditional, only simplified. Maybe this is because most of my friends are from around Beijing or at least went to the universities there?

people that use traditional can understand most of simplified characters. but not viceversa. IMO, including both traditional and simplified version should be easy. also, imo traditional looks nicer.

I dunno any Chinese language nor can read, but I do know this. I envy Saito there... Y_Y

I would say simplified... because (I think) more people would be likely to be able to read it. Also it is easier to read on a computer ^^;

During elementary and high school, we were taught traditional and funny enough were not allowed to use simplified when we write essays.

Also, I was under the impression that you can only use traditional for official documents. I guess I was mistaken in there. Well, at least learning japanese is much easier with a chinese background.

In my opinion, if you know traditional, you know simplified. But both seem to be taught in most curriculums in chinese-based countries. I still vote for traditional.

Simplified for me.

Traditonal, I can read by comparing the characters to their simplified conterparts.
But some characters can look similar but some very different.

Well, even i learn simplified chinese and know a little bit of traditional chinese, i vote for traditional chinese coz i think it's the origin of chinese characters. Just like chinese's culture, always remember and don't forget your origin no matter where u are =]

From what i have noticed, normally all the chinese websites used simplified instead of traditional. Simply because its easier to read and more people are learning it and younger generations are more exposed to it than traditional.

And if you are using a small font size or have size constraints for your text, it would be easier for the eyes if simplified is used instead. Having a bunch of rather small traditional paragraphs usually proved to be more challenging to read than to a bunch of small simplified paragraphs.

And nowadays, if there's some people who wish to pickup chinese, my best bet will be, they would rather choose simplified than traditional to start with.

May i ask for a spanish version? :D

simplified because they are easier to write
but in japanese they are not in simplified >_< but oh well~

i actually like traditional also, because you know :P they are tradition :P

I don't know either... so... um, go with whatever's most popular, I guess. *shrugs*

When I learned Mandarin for a few months, I learned traditional hanzi. I learned simple outside of class. Oh and of course, I remember that I had a classmate there that spoke Cantonese.

Oh! If you can't pick both, choose simple because one, traditional characters will be harder to read...unless you make the text size bigger (View - Text Size) and two, I don't think the older generation is into figurines, games and other forms of entertainment. Rarely do you see the Japanese language use traditional, as the kanji format 「中国」 is used more often than 「中國」. (When I write in Japanese, I use simple anyway, but for Chinese, I use traditional.) You are so in a rut with this matter Dan.

Seeing that I barely know Chinese, uh, I can sort of read both, but simple is my stronger format. The differences part has been touched upon anyway. So, I'm not going to bother.

Translate from Japanese to Chinese? Unfortunately, if I were to do this, the process would be way too long. First, I'd have to translate from Japanese to English. Then, I would have to e-mail the English translation to someone that knows Chinese so that the person can translate it. If I can't get a contact, the process would be way longer because I'd have to go to a site to translate word for word and then, do the copy and paste process.

You learned simplified chinese from Japanese kanji?
I'm currently learning my kanji and i believe the characters are geared more towards traditional ones! Have checked with my friend and he confirms it, Japanese kanji follows the older characters, hence the similarities with traditional chinese.

And I think a chinese version of the website will be a good idea to dabble with, +1!

Japanese kanji majority are using traditional chinese more than simplified chinese.
Well traditional chinese are using less in many country, i think now traditional chinese are only shown in some newspaper(e.g. Sin Chew daily) only and some country(Taiwan and Japanese) only.
Most time when there's a kanji, I always read it in mandarin lol. Since i dono how to pronounce it. XD

I can't say there's a big difference in Fan Ti Zi (Traditional Chinese) and Jian Ti Zi (Simplified Chinese). Even though I'd have to say that I can't handle learning even two languages at a time (My Chinese standard isn't even passing!!!), I can just simply say that Traditional Chinese words kinda have more "strokes" to write out, whereas Simplified Chinese have lesser (hence the term "Simplified"). No big difference between them except the way of writing the words. (As far as I know, all metaphorical meanings, grammar etc. are exactly the same*.)

And yeah, for Japanese kanji, both types of Chinese writing formats are used, though the Traditional Chinese words sort of outweigh the Simplified ones.

*Correct me if I'm wrong.