Simplified Chinese Characters: History, Examples & Usage

Most Chinese characters look complicated to the outside observer, but not all characters are created equal. There are two main Chinese writing systems: simplified Chinese characters and traditional Chinese characters.

Traditional characters are based on historical Chinese writing systems with roots tracing back millennia. Simplified characters are those same traditional characters, redesigned with fewer strokes so they are easier to read and write.

This guide explains where simplified characters are used, why and how they were created, and which script you should learn. Whether you study online or Learn Chinese in China through an immersion program, understanding the difference between the two scripts will shape how you read, write, and type Mandarin.

01 Simplified vs. Traditional Chinese Characters: What's the Difference?

Simplified characters are streamlined versions of traditional characters, created primarily by reducing the number of strokes. Many of the most frequently used characters were simplified, while characters that were already simple, like 字 (zì), or rarely used, like 弊 (bì), were left unchanged.

This means the two scripts overlap significantly. Numbers such as 一 (yī), 二 (èr), and 三 (sān) are identical in both systems.

02 Where Are Simplified Chinese Characters Used?

Simplified characters are the official Chinese written script of mainland China. Despite being developed in China, they are also used elsewhere: children studying Chinese in Malaysia and Singapore learn simplified characters.

It also wouldn't be surprising to see simplified characters in Hong Kong or Taiwan, and some Japanese kanji resemble their simplified Chinese counterparts. While traditional characters were once the only choice for books and formal texts, the majority of contemporary Chinese text today is written in simplified characters.

Does Mandarin Use Simplified or Traditional Characters?

People often say they want to study "simplified Mandarin," and others ask whether Mandarin Chinese is traditional or simplified. Unfortunately, there isn't a simple answer.

In Chinese, the writing system and the spoken language aren't as interlinked as they are in a language like English. This clear separation means "simplified Mandarin" is technically a misnomer.

It is more accurate to refer to Mandarin, the standard spoken dialect of mainland China, and simplified Chinese characters, the script used to write it. Because written Chinese is not phonetic, the same characters can be used to write both Mandarin and other Chinese dialects such as Cantonese.

In mainland China, Mandarin is studied using simplified characters, while in Taiwan, Mandarin is studied using traditional characters. Traditional characters are also still commonly used to write Cantonese, and historically were used to write Korean and Vietnamese.

03 Why Were Chinese Characters Simplified?

Simplifications to Chinese characters have existed almost as long as written Chinese itself. A common early example is cursive handwriting, which has incorporated simplified forms since the Qin dynasty (221–207 BCE).

Until the 20th century, however, such simplifications were limited to handwritten notes and rarely appeared in official documents. Understanding how Chinese characters are formed helps explain why simplifying them was even possible.

It may surprise you, but many early arguments for simplification were economic. In the early 1900s, China under the Qing dynasty was seen as falling behind the rest of the world, and many believed the complexity of written Chinese was partly to blame.

The famous author Lu Xun (鲁迅, Lǔ Xùn) is widely quoted as declaring: 汉字不灭，中国必亡 (Hànzì bù miè, Zhōngguó bì wáng). This can be roughly translated as, "If Chinese characters aren't destroyed, China will die."

At the time Lu Xun was writing, simplified characters didn't yet exist, so he was referring to the notoriously complex traditional script. He believed the difficulty of the character system was acting as a barrier to literacy and holding back China's development.

As late as 1950, China's literacy rate is estimated to have been only around 20 percent. This was partly due to the poor state of the education system, but also partially attributed to the complexity of the characters students had to learn.

Low literacy, in turn, hurt economic development, as there is a strong link between literacy and economic growth. Simplified characters were introduced in part to boost literacy and, through it, the economy.

04 The History of Simplified Chinese Characters

At the turn of the 20th century, the classical literary form of written Chinese, known as 文言文 (wényánwén), fell out of favor. Instead of maintaining separate grammatical rules for written and spoken Chinese, people began to write Chinese as it was spoken.

This change greatly simplified reading and writing, allowing virtually any well-educated person to produce and consume literature. However, it did not bring literacy to the vast majority of Chinese people.

In the 1950s, shortly after coming to power, the Communist Party of China undertook sweeping educational reforms aimed at fostering economic growth through improved literacy. As part of these reforms, the government introduced the first round of Chinese character simplifications in 1956, finalized as an official list in 1964.

In the 1970s and 80s, Singapore and Malaysia adopted China's simplifications into their own Mandarin curriculums. Classical Chinese is still taught in mainland Chinese literature classes today, but most documents are no longer written in it.

It is difficult to isolate the precise effect of character simplification, since it was one measure among many in the government's broader education reforms. We do know the reforms as a whole helped raise the literacy rate to about 65 percent by 1982, and to over 97 percent today.

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05 How Were Chinese Characters Simplified? The 3 Main Methods

Three main methods were used to make Chinese characters easier to read and write. The focus was on simplifying common characters, where reform was believed to have the greatest impact.

1. Simplifying the Structure of Characters

These simplifications involved removing or changing elements within a character. There were many variations, but the general idea was the same: reduce strokes.

For example, 齒 (chǐ) became 齿 (chǐ), with all but one of the elements in the box at the bottom removed. This made the character 7 strokes simpler, and therefore faster to write with correct Chinese stroke order.

Another example is 貝 (bèi), which became 贝 (bèi). Here the entire character was simplified, reducing the required strokes from 7 to 4.

In total, 482 characters were simplified using this method.

2. Deriving New Characters from Simplified Components

Of the 482 characters simplified by the first method, 132 can be used as components to simplify other characters further. 齿 (chǐ) is one of the 350 characters not reused this way.

贝 (bèi), on the other hand, appears in many different characters. Every character containing the traditional form 貝 could therefore be simplified by swapping in 贝.

Using this method, 貞 (zhēn) became 贞 (zhēn), and 贈 (zèng) became 赠 (zèng).

Multiple simplified components can also be combined within a single character. For example, 贝 (bèi) combines with 尽 (jǐn, simplified from both 盡 and 儘) to simplify 贐 (jìn) into 赆 (jìn), cutting the stroke count from 21 to 10.

3. Eliminating Variants of the Same Character

The first two methods involved changing characters, but many traditional characters share the same pronunciation and even the same meaning. For such characters, a single variant was chosen to represent all of them.

For example, 呼 (hū) was chosen to exclusively represent 虖, 嘑, 謼, and 呼 in simplified Chinese.

Most of the time the simplest variant was chosen, but occasionally a different one won out for aesthetic or historical reasons. For example, 榨 (zhà) was chosen over 搾 because it is significantly older, even though 榨 requires 14 strokes and 搾 only 13.

06 How Many Simplified Chinese Characters Are There?

People often want to know how many simplified characters exist, and fortunately there is an official answer. In 2013, the Chinese government published the 通用规范汉字表 (Tōngyòng Guīfàn Hànzì Biǎo), or Table of General Standard Chinese Characters, which contains 8,105 characters.

It's important to remember that many of these overlap with their traditional counterparts, like the numbers 一, 二, and 三. Meanwhile, estimates for the total number of traditional characters can exceed 100,000.

Because the component-substitution method can simplify characters that don't appear on the official list, the true answer is more complicated, just as the simplification process itself was. The good news for learners: you need far fewer characters than that to become literate.

07 The Second Round of Simplified Characters (and Why It Failed)

Not fully satisfied with the first round of simplifications, the Chinese government promulgated a second simplification scheme in December 1977. Its ultimate goal was to reduce the number of strokes per character to under 10, using the same three methods described above.

There were some key differences, however. While almost 90% of the characters simplified in the first round already existed unofficially (in cursive handwriting, for example), most of the second-round changes were entirely new creations.

Another issue was focus. The first scheme targeted the most commonly used characters, while the second targeted any character with more than 10 strokes, often simplifying characters that were rarely used.

These factors made the second round deeply unpopular, and it was officially rescinded in 1986. Since then, the first-round simplified characters have remained mainland China's official script.

Could Pinyin Replace Chinese Characters?

Another avenue for simplification came from 汉语拼音 (Hànyǔ Pīnyīn), or pinyin, the official romanization of Chinese. Since its introduction in 1958, some reformers have advocated for pinyin to replace characters completely.

This idea never gained much support. Although characters can be challenging to learn, most reformers recognized that Chinese characters are an essential part of the language.

After retracting the second round, the Chinese government made clear it does not intend to make further dramatic changes to the writing system. Today, pinyin's biggest practical role is as an input method for typing Chinese characters on phones and computers.

08 Should I Learn Simplified or Traditional Chinese?

The vast majority of Chinese speakers worldwide use simplified characters, so for many people it makes sense to learn them, especially because they are easier to write. They are also the standard script for HSK exams and most mainland textbooks.

However, there are good reasons to learn traditional characters too. You might have family in Hong Kong or Taiwan, be interested in classical Chinese literature, or simply think they look nicer.

It is also not uncommon to learn simplified characters first and explore traditional characters later. Many learners find that knowing one system makes recognizing the other much easier.

The most important point is that the choice is yours. You can even learn spoken Chinese without studying characters at all, although learning characters is highly recommended.

09 Common Simplified Chinese Characters and Their Traditional Equivalents

The chart below shows 25 frequently used simplified characters alongside their traditional equivalents. For deeper study, see our guide to the 100 most common Chinese characters.

10 FAQ

11 Final Thoughts

Simplified Chinese characters emerged from one of the largest literacy campaigns in history, reshaping how over a billion people read and write. They tell a story about language, politics, economics, and education all at once.

No matter which script you choose to study, you now know the difference between the two, and why and how simplified characters came about. That context will serve you well wherever your Chinese studies take you.