Hey all!

I hope you're all doing well! I'm about to join the crew of Skritters (and I'm sure they are quite large) on Mainland China this summer. I'm hoping to challenge HSK 4 once I arrive in China.

Alas I ask all Skritters this question: can I request an HSK test in traditional Chinese? Where? I thought about taking the TOP exam, but I don't feel its internationally recognized (and if I do decide to persue a masters in Chinese I would need to have an HSK score most likely, at least to my limited knowledge)? I'm pretty stubborn on staying faithtful to the traditional form of Chinese until I become fluent (my definition of fluency: being able to read a newspaper, argue about the news paper, write about it, and hold a conversation where I can express myself. Also being able to make my gf love notes in the morning in Chinese is a plus ;))

Sorry for the length!

Be well

勇氣！

I did some checking on this same subject a few months ago.

The consensus seems to be that the traditional-characters HSK has been completely phased out (until recently it was still available in, I think, Hong Kong and a few other places)
You can find old tests ('old' meaning "New HSK with Traditional characters") online for practice, but formally sitting the test and getting it graded with Traditional Characters is no longer possible.

Good luck while on China!, I'll be going there next month for a couple of weeks too. Which city are you going to?

胡马林

I started with learning simplified characters a year ago, simply because i kicked off my Chinese studies with a crash course from am mainland-based school. But since I've lately been spending a good deal of time in parts of the world where traditional characters are in use (Hong Kong, Taiwan, Penang, and of course Chinatown in London), I just turned on "both."

So far I'm finding it ralitively easy to learn the traditional characters where I already know the simplified. As in, for the hand-ful that have come up so far, I generally needed to draw them only once to get it right on subsequent times.

I fully expect completely new characters to take more time, but it shouldn't be too bad.

It's not particularly difficult to learn how to write the traditional characters. The difficulty lies in knowing which character to use as one simplified character can map to multiple traditional ones. For example, when to use 周 and when to use 週. For those learning the simplified ones first, they have to refine their well learned definitions for the simplified characters in order to convert them properly into traditional ones. And this refinement process can be avoided if the traditional ones are learned first.

Interesting, I guess eventually ill begin learning traditional characters as well.

Thanks for the insights all! ) <3 I'll be moving to Wuhan to teach in an international school.

Happy writting all!

勇氣

"I'm pretty stubborn on staying faithtful to the traditional form of Chinese until I become fluent"

To the play the devil's advocate, how do you plan on being faithful if you're in Wuhan? I imagine you'll get used to Simplified characters quite quickly while you're there.

It's kinda like a Chinese student saying he'll be faithful to learningp British English while studying English in New York. I understand we all have preferences, but it makes more sense (to me) to focus on the language of the environment you're in.

I don't think it will be too difficult to stay faithful. I'll just ask my 武漢朋友s to type traditional Chinese for me =D.