Chinese Characters ​漢字: 汉字

Hànzì : ​hon(4) si(4)​

As previously mentioned, I have tried to include both traditional and simplified Chinese characters within the website. Simplified characters, promoted since the 1950s-60s under Mao, were developed in order to increase the literacy rate of the general population and are still in use in mainland China, whilst traditional characters are used in Hong, Kong, Taiwan and by overseas Chinese communities.

I have included both because I think it is useful to be aware of traditional characters even if learning the simplified ones is easier! Plus the traditional ones are more beautiful.

Example of Traditional vs. Simplified

愛 : 爱

ài : oi(4)

Meaning: 'love'. You can see that the character on the left incorporates the character for 'heart' within its structure （心）, and that this has been altered in the simplified character on the right.

If you come across Chinese characters without the simplified version next to them, that is because there is no difference between the traditional and simplified versions.

Size of characters

​I would have preferred to make every Chinese character large size for easy reading. However, I am using Squarespace to create this website and the formatting does not allow for this. In order for Chinese characters to be large font within the text, the entire English text would also have to be large font and readers would have to scroll too much!