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Q: what is the difference between Mandarin and Simplified Chinese?
mandarin refers to the mutually intelligible language spoken broadly in mainland china, taiwan, etc. simplified chinese refers to one version of the written system of the chinese language developed mainly (but not only) in the 1950s and 60s as an attempt to increase literacy in a country which, at the time, was far more impoverished and literacy was quite low. it is not only a reduction in the number of actual characters but also a simplification of the actual structure of the characters. for example simplified ‘个’ a measure word for many differen things and objects looks like that. however traditional '個' looks like this. both retain the same meaning, they just look different, and would be pronounced differently in cantonese and mandarin. however this is not true for all written characters. cantonese and other chinese dialects have characters or ways of written certain sentences, phrases, or words that differ from mandarin. i can't think of an example off the top of my head, but i know they exist.
it should be mentioned that some characters are the same whether they are written in simplified or traditional form.
我不知道. is one example, but:
我不曉得。 and 我不晓得。are different but can both be read by anyone who can read both versions of the script and have the same meaning.
Basically, the number of characters used is reduced by quite a bit in Simplified Chinese
mandarin refers to the mutually intelligible language spoken broadly in mainland china, taiwan, etc. simplified chinese refers to one version of the written system of the chinese language developed mainly (but not only) in the 1950s and 60s as an attempt to increase literacy in a country which, at the time, was far more impoverished and literacy was quite low. it is not only a reduction in the number of actual characters but also a simplification of the actual structure of the characters. for example simplified ‘个’ a measure word for many differen things and objects looks like that. however traditional '個' looks like this. both retain the same meaning, they just look different, and would be pronounced differently in cantonese and mandarin. however this is not true for all written characters. cantonese and other chinese dialects have characters or ways of written certain sentences, phrases, or words that differ from mandarin. i can't think of an example off the top of my head, but i know they exist.
it should be mentioned that some characters are the same whether they are written in simplified or traditional form.
我不知道. is one example, but:
我不曉得。 and 我不晓得。are different but can both be read by anyone who can read both versions of the script and have the same meaning.
