Should I learn Traditional Chinese characters or Simplified Chinese characters first
If you’re more interested in mainland China, then learn simplified. If you’re more interested in Taiwan, Hong Kong and/or Macau, then learn traditional. Each system is used pretty much used exclusively in their respective regions (anyone can correct me if they think I’m wrong). If you want to learn both, I don’t think the order really matters. Traditional characters are much harder to write, but the difficulty for reading is pretty much the same. Just make sure you focus on one at first, as doing both at the same time would be very confusing.
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Unless you intend on moving to Taiwan stick with simplified at first simply because there is more material in simplified, especially for learners.
Yeah I agree. Remember that reading characters and writing characters are two very different things…so unless you are moving to Taiwan and need to hand write official paperwork in Chinese, I wouldn’t bother learning to write traditional characters. I think the difference is way WAAY less of a problem in learning how to read: I started Chinese after learning Japanese (traditional characters) and found it very easy to to recognize their simplified counterparts. Therefore, I would just learn to read the simplified characters to start because there is more material out there and also it’s what is used on lingq. If you reach a high level of reading ability in Chinese, you’ll be able to learn to read traditional ones easily. Because handwriting is so much less important today than 50 years ago, I think the difference is not a decision you need to stress out about. Good Luck!