Traditional or simplified first?

Month one is not for “getting a feel for both.” It is for making 这 (zhè, this) one shape, one sound, and one gloss. If that card swings between 这 and 這, you are not adding culture. You are splitting a word.

Simplified and traditional are not two languages. Spoken Mandarin sounds the same. 马 (mǎ, horse) and 馬 are said the same. The ink is what changes. Memory does not reward that equivalence. It rewards the shape you saw yesterday.

Three pairs are enough to see the kind of difference. You do not need a chart. 门 drops the inner strokes of 門 and leaves a doorway. 马 drops the legs of 馬 and leaves a broken stroke. 这 shortens 這. The word does not change. The drawing does.

That cut is not “easier” in the abstract. It is another convention. If your street, your family, or your exam uses the long form, the short form is extra. If your exam and your lists use the short form, the long form is extra. Extra can wait. Month one cannot.

A typical miss is a simplified course plus a traditional notebook “in case I travel.” Travel does not arrive in week 2. The SRS queue does. Every day 这 and 這 both show up, both intervals rot.

Another miss is delaying hanzi so you can “choose a script later.” Pinyin will not choose for you. If that is the temptation, read why pinyin first slows you down. The stall here is different: two drawings for one lemma.

Month one wants an ugly rule. You pick simplified or traditional. You write it at the top of the notebook. Anything that is not that script leaves the deck. It is not forever. It is for these four weeks.

If an app lets you toggle script with one tap, freeze the switch. A tap on Monday and another on Thursday is a mixed deck with a nicer UI. Memory does not see the switch. It sees 门 on Monday and 門 on Thursday.

HSK is administered in Mandarin and in simplified characters. Wikipedia’s HSK page summarises that. Registration and the rules live on chinesetest.cn. CLEC coordinates international Chinese teaching. None of the three asks you for a mixed deck.

The paper nuance matters, and it does not change week 1. Wikipedia notes that on a paper sitting you may hand in writing in simplified or traditional. That is the writing section, once writing exists. The reading you see on the test is still simplified. Drilling 門 all month and meeting 门 in reading is a pointless hit.

The paper most centers still run is the six-level one. HSK 1 is about 150 words, with pinyin beside the characters on the written paper. The HSK 1 guide says what that level tests. The map of every level is in the HSK guides. Ask your center which paper it offers. Do not guess from an app.

In 2021 the standard moved to nine bands. The lexicon is counted differently there. Do not mix that map with the six-level paper in the same week. Do not mix scripts “because the new framework already shipped.” The framework does not pick 马 or 馬 for you. Your center does.

This site publishes lists in simplified. The HSK 1 list is not a bilingual script PDF. It is the study inventory in the shape HSK will put in front of you. Treating “a word on this site” as “a word in traditional” is inventing a second exam.

HSK 1 lets you read 这 with pinyin. It does not let you read 這 because “it is the same.” The ear equalises them. The eye does not. If your plan is the classic paper, the eye trains 这. 门 and 马 arrive when the syllabus asks. Not all three doubled forms on Tuesday.

It is not a speaking test either. Written HSK measures listening and reading. Speaking is a separate paper. The script you pick does not replace hearing 这 in audio that will not wait. Pick a script. Then listen. Listening does not change ink. Reading does.

If your center already examines another scheme, that scheme wins. A blog cannot invent your sitting. It can tell you not to study 這 for a reading paper that will show 这. That is the only rule this section defends.

Traditional first if you live in Taiwan or Hong Kong. The street, the menu, and the family chat usually run in the long form. Studying 门 while the lobby sign says 門 is studying a country that is not yours this month.

Traditional first if you can name a family reason. Letters from a grandparent. A partner who writes 這. A school in Taipei. If you cannot name the reason, it is not a reason. It is fear of “missing the culture.” Culture is not lost by parking 馬 for four weeks. It is lost by reading neither form.

Wikipedia notes another practical fact, not an essay. HSK is not offered in Taiwan. The local exam is a different paper. If your Taipei school points you at that test, do not copy a simplified HSK syllabus because the brand is more famous. Ask which script and which exam that school marks. Then lock that pair.

Hong Kong mixes more than a blog can settle. Cantonese is not HSK. Mandarin you study for a mainland Chinese paper will still see simplified. Mandarin you study to live in the neighbourhood will see traditional. Month one still wants one. If your life is the neighbourhood, traditional. If your life is chinesetest.cn, simplified.

You do not need a manifesto. You need a line in the notebook: “this month, traditional” or “this month, simplified.” If you move, you change the line. You do not change it mid-queue.

What is not a reason: a video that says traditional is “real Chinese.” A thread that says simplified “mutilates” the language. Both scripts serve real people. Your month one can only serve one.

If you pick traditional, do not treat this site’s lists as your deck. Those lists are simplified. Find an inventory aligned with your exam or your street. Do not hand-convert 这 into 這 card by card on Sunday. That conversion job is the mixed deck under another name.

You also do not need both scripts “to be complete” before HSK 2. Complete comes later, if it comes. People who read both did it with years of one script and then a bridge. The bridge is not week 1. Week 1 is not falling over.

A mixed deck looks like coverage. It is debt. 这 and 這 fire the same sound and the same gloss. SRS treats them as two memories. You fail one, “review” the other, and neither reaches a long interval.

The ugly pattern is easy to describe. Monday: 这 in the app. Tuesday: 這 in a Taiwan PDF “for contrast.” Wednesday: you cannot tell which one you saw. Wednesday is not comparative culture. It is a failed card.

Three pairs again, now as a trap. If 门 and 門 share a queue, every door has two keys. If 马 and 馬 share it, the horse takes two slots in a queue that is already short. If 这 and 這 share it, “this” never sticks. You do not need the rest of Unicode.

Do not mix “simplified HSK 1” with a deck of “3,000 traditional characters to read manga” either. Manga can wait. HSK 1 does not ask for 3,000. Classic HSK 1 is about 150 words. This site’s long list is wider on purpose. Even that list is not a licence to import a second script.

If you already mixed them, the fix is short. Suspend or archive one script entirely. Keep the one that matches the paper or the street. Do not “review each script on alternate days.” That stretches the wound.

Anki will not save you if the shared deck arrived mixed. Some “HSK 1–6” decks drop traditional forms under a simplified title. Before you import, look at three random notes. If you see 這 in a deck that swears it is HSK, it is not your month one.

The same discipline applies to the notebook. One column. One shape. Pinyin and a gloss. Stroke order for that shape, not both. Five hanzi a day is still the cap. The cap does not double because two scripts exist.

A dictionary that shows both forms is fine as lookup. It is not fine as a queue. You look up 門 when a family message puts it in front of you. You do not drop it into SRS “just in case.” “Just in case” is how a month of HSK 1 becomes a filing cabinet of shapes.

You do not need a debate today. You need a list in one script. If your goal is six-level HSK, that list is HSK 1 vocabulary. It is simplified. Do not convert it to traditional “just in case.”

The HSK 1 guide reminds you of the format. chinesetest.cn is still where you register. This site is not the test center. It is the study inventory in the shape of the paper.

If your case is Taiwan, Hong Kong, or family, do not open that list to force simplified. You already chose. Stay on traditional and on the exam that marks you. The rest of this section is not for you.

If your case is HSK, five words from that list are enough for today. 这 goes in. 门 and 马 wait for their level. You do not need 門 in the margin. The margin is how the second deck is born.

Chinese Trainer publishes those lists in simplified. An account gives you the same queue, not a new script. The official exam is still booked elsewhere. Month one is still played in one ink.

Pinyin is the official romanization of Mandarin. Hanzi are the written Chinese characters. HSK is Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi. Reviewed by Javier Garcia Floriano. About us. Contact.

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