I’m Floor, I’m a dutch Polyglot and I have a few questions about learning Chinese.
I’d really like to start learning Chinese, but I don’t know where to start. I have a lot of questions.
When I am learning for instance the word(s) ‘Thank you’ in Chinese, should I learn how to say it only, or should I learn the character too, how to write it etc.?
Should I learn traditional or simplefied Chinese?
I have a few more, but this would help me out already.
I want mainly to be able to speak Mandarin, but I’d also like reading/writing it.
Thanks, Floor.
PS, I speak Dutch, English, French and German (also Russian, but not too well), if anyone needs help you can message me.
Your questions are really personal preference. I’ll give you mine, fwiw.
“Should I learn traditional or simplefied Chinese?”
The internet is littered with infighting on this question. To be honest, you are better off not asking and just reading through the numerous flame wars, and then making up your own mind.
Simplified is what is standardised by the government in China, and what most of Chinese content is written in. Traditional is what you will see in Taiwan, HK etc.
Some will argue traditional will help you truly know classic literature, the true spirit of characters, and is the best and only true way etc. Some will respond by saying that traditional uses more ink when you print it and will therefore destroy the planet, it is harder to learn, no one uses it, oracle bones aren’t written in traditional so it is not traditional anyway, don’t call it zhengtizi, flame, flame etc.
Regardless, and this speaks to your first question, the “best” way (and this is what I did) is to just follow the method of the ZT experiment.