{"id":7205,"date":"2024-07-23T19:40:25","date_gmt":"2024-07-23T17:40:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/?p=7205"},"modified":"2024-12-22T19:47:04","modified_gmt":"2024-12-22T18:47:04","slug":"chinese-character-variants-and-fonts-for-language-learners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/chinese-character-variants-and-fonts-for-language-learners\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese character variants and font differences for language learners"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/chinese-character-variants-and-fonts-for-language-learners\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-18701 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/font-differences-x2-300x289.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"289\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/font-differences-x2-300x289.png 300w, https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/font-differences-x2.png 560w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>When writing Chinese characters, small differences sometimes matter, but sometimes they don&#8217;t. Figuring out which details to pay attention to is made even harder by character variants and font differences!<\/p>\n<p>For example, when I first started learning Chinese, I accidentally used a Japanese font on my flashcards. This was easy to fix once I realised what was happening, but I lost several points on exams before I realised something was wrong!<\/p>\n<p><em>Tune in to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/podcast\/\">the Hacking Chinese Podcast<\/a> to listen to the related episode (#207):<br \/>\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/episode\/577jEJ4bx5Rl8uigZA5UF4?utm_source=generator\" width=\"100%\" height=\"152\" allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border-radius:12px;\" allowfullscreen loading=\"lazy\"><\/iframe>\n<\/em><em>Available on <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/hacking-chinese-podcast\/id1536284827\">Apple Podcasts<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy8zODhlYjllOC9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw==\">Google Podcast<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/overcast.fm\/itunes1536284827\/hacking-chinese-podcast\">Overcast<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/5iCRv1jg3j3yJZGJlYVYaO\">Spotify<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/re1MgnVUjVc\">YouTube<\/a>\u00a0and many other platforms!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I was only able to sort this out when my teacher highlighted the issue. Here&#8217;s what my flashcard looked like for the character \u76f4 (left), including in similar compounds like \u503c and \u771f, next to what it should look like (right).<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-18651\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/zhijp.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"242\" height=\"100\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Here are more examples of the same character written according to different standards. This time, the difference is between mainland China and Taiwan standards (in that order), rather than Japanese.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-18652\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/twcn.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"970\" height=\"100\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/twcn.png 1028w, https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/twcn-300x31.png 300w, https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/twcn-1024x106.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/twcn-768x79.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 970px) 100vw, 970px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Can you spot where these characters are different? There are two major differences for each character! You can see the difference highlighted further down in this article.<\/p>\n<h3>Chinese character variants and font differences for language learners<\/h3>\n<p>In this article, I will discuss character variation and font differences. In essence, these are different ways of writing or displaying\u00a0<em>the same character.\u00a0<\/em>Even though they look different, they are still the same character. It&#8217;s as if they are wearing different clothes, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/kickstart-your-learning-with-the-skritter-character-course\/\">as I put it in Skritter&#8217;s character course<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The goal here is not to cover every single case, but rather to make you aware of this phenomenon and show you enough examples so that you understand the concepts involved. This will not make the challenge go away, but it will be less confusing!<\/p>\n<p>Note that this is not the same as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/simplified-and-traditional-chinese\/\">simplified and traditional characters<\/a>. None of the characters above are listed in the documents describing the character simplification process. Instead, they are parallel variants of the same character, where one version is preferred in different regions. How they are displayed on computers often depends on the font you use, not what you actually type, which is not true for simplified and traditional characters.<\/p>\n<p>So far, I&#8217;ve mentioned mainland China, Japan and Taiwan, but Hong Kong, Korea and Vietnam also use characters and often have different standards as well.<\/p>\n<h3>The same characters written differently, not different characters<\/h3>\n<p>Remember that these are the same characters, written differently, not different characters that look similar. In handwritten Chinese, which variant you use matters little, and no one will misunderstand you if you write the &#8220;wrong&#8221; version. Most people will not even notice. Most people do not write exactly like the standard in their respective regions either.<\/p>\n<p>However, when using phones and computers, you will come across characters that are different from what you have learnt, and knowing about this phenomenon can be helpful.<\/p>\n<p>Each time I teach a beginner course in Chinese, I get questions about different fonts and computer characters that don&#8217;t look like the characters in the textbook or those I write on the board.<\/p>\n<h3>Character variation closer to home<\/h3>\n<p>To better understand character variation in Chinese, let&#8217;s\u00a0 start by looking at two examples from English:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>g vs. \u0261<\/li>\n<li>a vs.\u00a0\u0251<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The former letter variant is common in print and digital texts, but the latter is much more common in handwritten texts. They are the same letters, though.<\/p>\n<p>Most people might not even notice which one you use! So, from a practical perspective, they are the same and both are recognised as the same letter, even though they look different. They are the same at the core, they&#8217;re just wearing different clothes.<\/p>\n<p>If an adult encountered the Latin alphabet for the first time, they could be forgiven for thinking that &#8220;a&#8221; and &#8220;\u0251&#8221; are not very similar. Arguably, the latter is closer to &#8220;o&#8221; than &#8220;a&#8221;. There&#8217;s also &#8220;A&#8221;, which is again the same letter but written quite differently. While not identical in function, it&#8217;s still the same letter.<\/p>\n<p>When writing by hand in English then, some strokes are important, but others are not.<\/p>\n<h3>Allography and character variants<\/h3>\n<p>This is called <em>allography<\/em> and can be confusing when learning Chinese characters. The same character can look slightly different depending on what region you&#8217;re in, what fonts you have installed and what fonts the publisher decided to use.<\/p>\n<p>These differences are sometimes so big that they look like different characters, just like &#8220;a&#8221; and &#8220;A&#8221; don&#8217;t look very similar to the untrained eye<\/p>\n<p>The problem is that you can&#8217;t know this just by looking at the characters, because there are also many examples where small details make the difference between two different characters with their own pronunciation and meaning, as in \u5df2 (y\u01d0) vs. \u5df1 (j\u01d0).<\/p>\n<p>To explain this in this article, I have divided character variation into two categories:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Regional font differences<\/li>\n<li>Regionally preferred variants<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>These are technically not different things, but they work differently on your computer or phone, so it&#8217;s worth discussing them separately.<\/p>\n<h3>Regional font differences in Chinese<\/h3>\n<p>The first group contains characters that are identical from a code perspective (they have the same code point in Unicode). This means they can&#8217;t be displayed differently using the same font. If you take the top character from the image below, \u9aa8, you can only ever get one of the variants within the same text, assuming you use the same font.<\/p>\n<p>Here are the examples we looked at earlier, now bigger and with the differences highlighted. Left\/red is the standard in mainland China, and right\/blue is the standard in Taiwan:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/font-differences-x3.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-18700\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/font-differences-x3.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"598\" height=\"777\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/font-differences-x3.png 598w, https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/font-differences-x3-231x300.png 231w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 598px) 100vw, 598px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>The fonts used in this picture are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.xiazaiziti.com\/5056.html\"><span class=\"comment-text \">\u65b9\u6b63\u6977\u4f53\u7b80\u4f53<\/span><\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/language.moe.gov.tw\/result.aspx?classify_sn=23&amp;subclassify_sn=436&amp;content_sn=47\"><span class=\"comment-text \">\u6559\u80b2\u90e8\u6a19\u6e96\u6977\u66f8<\/span><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>While no one will misunderstand what you write if you use the &#8220;wrong&#8221; version, either in print or handwriting, these differences can confuse and cost you points on exams, as they did for me!<\/p>\n<h3>Normal Chinese font variation<\/h3>\n<p>Even though this is not the topic of this article, I feel I need to point out that fonts look different in many ways beyond the differences I&#8217;m talking about here, just like fonts do in English. Two types of fonts are particularly useful to be aware of as a student:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>\u660e\u4f53 (m\u00edngt\u01d0)<\/strong>, is the most common type of font used in both printed and digital texts today. It\u2019s sometimes also called \u5b8b\u4f53 (s\u00f2ngt\u01d0). You can recognise it by the marked contrast between horizontal and vertical<br \/>\nlines, and the small triangles at the end of horizontal strokes.<\/li>\n<li><strong>\u6977\u4f53 (k\u01ceit\u01d0)<\/strong>, or &#8220;regular script,&#8221; is more similar to handwriting and is the second most common style, except in Chinese textbooks where it&#8217;s completely dominant. Your textbook almost certainly uses this type of font. It&#8217;s easy to recognise because strokes have variable thicknesses.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the motto of Hacking Chinese written with both types of fonts (\u660e\u4f53 at the top, \u6977\u4f53 at the bottom), all in traditional Chinese:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-18656 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/mingkaiti-1024x236.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"512\" height=\"118\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/mingkaiti-1024x236.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/mingkaiti-300x69.png 300w, https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/mingkaiti-768x177.png 768w, https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/mingkaiti.png 1067w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>For more about Chinese fonts, including their history, <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/YyNWvS-Sauw?si=w_L75973oOQw1Ah6\">check this video from Skritter<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YyNWvS-Sauw?si=w_L75973oOQw1Ah6\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>Regionally preferred variants of Chinese characters<\/h3>\n<p>Now that we have looked at font differences, let&#8217;s move on to the second group. Here, we have characters with several variants that are preferred in different places. Here&#8217;s an example:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span lang=\"zh-cn\" xml:lang=\"zh-cn\">\u6237<\/span> (preferred in mainland China)<\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"zh-cn\" xml:lang=\"zh-cn\">\u6236 (preferred in Taiwan)<br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"zh-cn\" xml:lang=\"zh-cn\">\u6238 (preferred in Japan)<br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p lang=\"zh-TW\">Superficially, this looks like the same issue as we&#8217;ve already discussed, but it&#8217;s not. The difference is that these are different from a code perspective (they have different code points), so which one is displayed is not only a font issue. Since they are different, they c<em>an\u00a0<\/em>be displayed differently even with the same font, although some fonts merge some of them.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"zh-TW\">Here are some examples of characters for which the preferred variant is different (again, mainland China on the left, Taiwan on the right):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span lang=\"zh-TW\">\u6237 and \u6236<br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"zh-TW\">\u5f55 and \u5f54<br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"zh-TW\">\u6ca1 and \u6c92<br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"zh-TW\">\u6362 and <\/span><span lang=\"zh-TW\">\u63db<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"zh-TW\">\u9ec4 and \u9ec3<br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"zh-TW\">\u5965 and \u5967<br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"zh-TW\">\u522b and \u5225<br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"zh-TW\">\u5239 and \u524e<br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"zh-TW\">\u51b2 and <\/span><span lang=\"zh-TW\">\u6c96<\/span><span lang=\"zh-TW\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"zh-TW\">\u7fa1 and <\/span><span lang=\"zh-TW\">\u7fa8<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"zh-TW\">\u629b and <\/span><span lang=\"zh-TW\">\u62cb<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"zh-TW\">\u5434 and \u5433<br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>To summarise, these\u00a0<em>can<\/em> be displayed differently if the font is designed to do so. If some characters listed above look the same to you, it means that the device you&#8217;re reading this article on is using a font where they are the same, instead of the one I use, which will render them differently. On my computer, they all look different.<\/p>\n<p>This is different from the font variations we talked about earlier, which <em>cannot<\/em> be displayed differently within the same font, as they share the same code point.<\/p>\n<p>Rather confusingly, some of the variants that have different code points, such as \u6237 and \u6236, appear in compounds, such as \u623f, that don&#8217;t have two parallel versions, so which one you get is then again entirely up to the font you&#8217;re using.<\/p>\n<h3>More Chinese character variants<\/h3>\n<p>Chinese characters have been used by a myriad of people over thousands of years in a vast geographical area. This means that there are often not just one or two variants, but dozens. Here&#8217;s the search result in <a href=\"https:\/\/dict.variants.moe.edu.tw\/\">this dictionary of Chinese character variants<\/a> for the first example I used in the introduction of this article: <a href=\"https:\/\/dict.variants.moe.edu.tw\/dictView.jsp?ID=29598&amp;q=1\">\u76f4<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-18653 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/zhivariants.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1403\" height=\"706\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/zhivariants.png 1403w, https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/zhivariants-300x151.png 300w, https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/zhivariants-1024x515.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/zhivariants-768x386.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1403px) 100vw, 1403px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>However, most of these are not used often or at all in a modern context.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/zi.tools\/zi\/\">This tool<\/a> can come in handy if you want to check standards across different regions quickly. It contains a lot of information about characters in general, but in the bottom right, you&#8217;ll find this information (again for <a href=\"https:\/\/zi.tools\/zi\/%E7%9B%B4\">\u76f4<\/a>):<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-18654\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/zizhistandards.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"513\" height=\"391\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/zizhistandards.png 513w, https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/zizhistandards-300x229.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 513px) 100vw, 513px\" \/><\/p>\n<h3>Conclusion<strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>This article was meant to help you understand why some characters may be displayed differently depending on what fonts you use or where a character was printed. To verify that you&#8217;re using the right font, you can refer to this companion article: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/how-to-verify-that-you-use-the-right-chinese-font\/\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"noopener\">How to verify that you use the right Chinese font<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"y7NEe9HcQ2\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/how-to-verify-that-you-use-the-right-chinese-font\/\">How to verify that you use the right Chinese font<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; visibility: hidden;\" title=\"&#8220;How to verify that you use the right Chinese font&#8221; &#8212; Hacking Chinese\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/how-to-verify-that-you-use-the-right-chinese-font\/embed\/#?secret=khWq3NUQII#?secret=y7NEe9HcQ2\" data-secret=\"y7NEe9HcQ2\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I realise that this article probably created more questions than it answered, but that&#8217;s just the nature of the Chinese writing system. There rarely are simple questions with straightforward answers that don&#8217;t turn out to be rabbit holes.<\/p>\n<p>If you want to know more about how Chinese characters and fonts work, here is a short reading list:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Variant_Chinese_character\">What&#8217;s the Difference between Simplified &amp; Traditional Chinese, and are they Separate in Unicode?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/unicode.org\/faq\/han_cjk.html\">Unicode Chinese and Japanese FAQ<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Variant_Chinese_character\">Variant Chinese characters<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Han_unification\">Han Unification<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em><strong>Editor\u2019s note:\u00a0<\/strong>This article, originally published in 2015, was rewritten from scratch and massively updated in July, 2024.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Small details sometimes matter when writing Chinese characters, but sometimes they don&#8217;t. Figuring out which details to pay attention to is made even harder by character variants and font differences!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18701,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5,6,10,17,22,23],"tags":[722,101,112,721,1374],"class_list":["post-7205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advanced","category-beginner","category-distinctively-chinese","category-intermediate","category-reading","category-vocabulary","category-writing","tag-allography","tag-character-variants","tag-chinese-characters","tag-fonts","tag-unicode"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Chinese character variants and fonts for language learners<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Small details sometimes matter when writing Chinese characters, but sometimes they don&#039;t. 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