One of the first questions for new Chinese learners is to decide which Chinese dialect to learn. If you are looking to be smart about learning, making this choice can be difficult.
Usually the best choice is to go with Mandarin and learn simplified characters. It has the largest availability of learning materials, it is easier to learn and you will be able to communicate with more people.
To fully understand this recommendation you need background:
Chinese language did not develop linearly, but emerged over time. In Europe people do not use Latin anymore, however many languages are based on it. Similarly Chinese has a common set of written characters, but diversity in spoken word.
Over 1 Billion people speak some form of Chinese as their mother tongue. So if you can speak Chinese, you can speak to over 15% of the world population?! This is unfortunately not true, since Chinese is split into more or less close dialects.
Spoke Chinese – Dozens of Dialects
Spoken Chinese differs by location. The different varieties of Chinese are called ‘Dialects‘. Some of them are close to each other, while others are different and require learning even more Chinese native speakers.
A commonality between the dialects is that they are written with Chinese characters. So once you understand either simplified or traditional characters there’s a good chance you will get around in a lot of places.
Traditional vs. Simplified Characters
When learning Mandarin, you can learn simplified or traditional characters. Simplified characters are used in the People’s Republic of China, while Taiwan uses traditional characters.
The advantage of simplified characters is that they have less strokes and are therefore faster to write. Further there are more learning materials with simplified characters (although many online platforms support both). The disadvantage of is that simplified characters have lost some of their meaning, by cutting out or simplifying components.
If you intend to learn both types of character: Since traditional characters are more ‘complete’, some people say that its easier to learn traditional characters first and then switch to simplified.
From my experience it is not a large Challenge to go from simplified to traditional. I have started learning simplified characters myself first and then spend time in Taiwan. It took my some additional learning to be able to recognize traditional characters.