Explanation on Chinese Character Sets and Fonts:
Correct, there are 2 versions of Chinese character sets, the Traditional (Fan Ti â ç¹é«) and the Simplified (Jian Ti â ç®ä½) Sets. Just like English alphabets, there are many types of Fonts in each set.
Mainland China uses Simplified Set and Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore use Traditional Set. This is because Simplified Set was developed in China after 1949 for fast writing, and overseas Chinese traditionally still use Traditional Set.
Unfortunately the two versions use different computer coding and are not compatible. Traditional is Big5 code and the Simplified is GB2312. Although converters are very common, you have to get both character font sets to display both. Like English, if you donât have the Fonts, it will default to the basic set, but there are 2 sets.
Having said that, some words are the same in both versions, for ç¦ is one, which explains why you can display it with any one character set.
If you have loaded the Simplified Set, you will see this word å, as duskdawn pointed out early on in this thread.
If you have loaded the Traditional Set, you will see this word ç¼. If you can see both å and ç¼, congratulations, you've got both sets.
A character is a word in Chinese, although writes differently, the equivalent word means exactly the same in both sets.
Now you know, letâs learn more Chinese.
(But I must warn you, there are more than 70 dialects, and 4 different ways of pronouncing a word in each dialect.)