Question about Chinese Charatcters in Lessons

Just select one OR the other if you are starting. Tiawan and most overseas Chinese use Traditional. Mainland Chinese use Simplified. Conventional wisdom is it is easier to learn simplified after first learning traditional than the other way around. I am learning Simplified. For some reason this topic is controversal, as can be seen by past flame wars on several forums (including this one).

For the most part, this site uses simplified, though I understand there's support for traditional under the new update. (Perhaps somebody else can chime in on that.) As to which you learn, if you're planning on spending time in Hong Kong and Taiwan, traditional is de rigeur. If your plans mostly include the mainland, then simplified is the most practical. There are aesthetic factors as well, but I'll let other chip in on those.

Oh yeah, your first question. The pdf transcripts use simplified characters.

Thanks, james ans tvan. I'm about as Newbie as one can be, but I'm gonna try to get started on some basic characters. I'll start with simplifies, since I'll target mainlanders as my first "look what I can write" victims!

People who learn traditional characters have a constant struggle to find a good range of learning resources, because so much is coming out of China, and even other people (teachers/students/publishers) who already use simplified characters don't seem to consider it useful or important to provide traditional characters as well, because they rarely see them - catch 22. These days, availability of resources is the only thing, in my view, that makes learning traditional characters harder than learning simplified characters, the constant battle to find a good range of appropriate learning resources. And that is why some of us here are so vocal about the recent welcome changes at CPod that have made it possible for us to use the site fully in our own way too. And for this reason of resource availability, if no other, I would urge anyone who is really undecided to learn simplified characters, all things being equal. On the other hand, if you want to learn both equally, you will need to start with mainly traditional, and constantly strive to find opportunities to encounter traditional characters in your learning experiences, otherwise you'll find yourself flooded with one style over the other. Without exercising constant vigilance, your original 50/50 intentions would quickly become 90/10 simplified/traditional by incidental exposure in various learning environments and contexts. For sequential study, the logic is easier to follow if you start with traditional and expand to include simplified. Traditional characters contain all of the elements that link the character to its meaning, sound, and history, and to related words. Then simplified characters remove some of that information for the purpose of making the shape easier to write by hand. So if you want to learn the lot, that's a nice logical progression. You don't have to worry about handwriting these days because everything done on computers is equally easy for both. For people who must or want to only learn traditional characters, for example people in Chinese communities outside of China, without attending a class that teaches that way, the going can be tough unless you are well prepared. Gather and treasure as many traditional character learning resources as you can. That might include some excellent 30 or 40 year old text books that you'll find very cheap in second hand shops (beware of vocabulary and language usage changes!), to supplement a core of good quality traditional character based lessons, such as cpod with its new traditional character support. There are a few different reasons why some people must learn traditional characters, but be aware that doing so requires a high level of personal resourcefulness and determination, which has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual learning or its relative difficulty. The difficulty is purely a resource, social, and sometimes political issue. So if it makes little difference to you, avoid the hassle, take the easy route that lets you just concentrate on the learning, and choose simplified.

There's no reason you can learn simplified first though and learn to recognise their traditional counterparts later on, that's the way I'm doing it.