I started studying Simplified Chinese a few years ago, but when I moved to Taipei, I had to switch to Traditional characters, and it was NOT easy
At first, it was overwhelming. Characters I thought I “knew” suddenly felt unfamiliar, and even basic ones like 卖 (mài - to sell), 这 (zhè - this), and 个 (gè - measure word) looked completely different: they became 賣, 這, and 個 in Traditional! For a while, I was mixing them up constantly, but after been here for more than a year now I’m starting to feel more comfortable reading them.
And I have to say, Traditional characters are just beautiful! They feel like little works of art, and I love that you can often see the origins of the character more clearly.
For example, the character for “love” in Simplified is 爱, but in Traditional, it’s 愛—with the 心 (heart) component intact.
Are you learning Simplified or traditional? And if you had to make the switch like I did, how was your experience?
Reading this post I feel like I could’ve written it, such a similar experience! I started learning Simplified Chinese a few years ago too, thinking I’d never need traditional at all…
Then of course I moved to Taipei and traditional characters were EVERYWHERE. Trying to read menus/signs/instructions made me feel like whatever I’d been studying before was definitely not Mandarin
But honestly, after sticking with it, traditional characters grew on me. They just feel fancy and actually logically can make a lot more sense. Like simplified’s 爱 feels kind of heartless (pun intended).
Now, after a while in Taipei, I’ve reached a point where I don’t even think about using traditional characters anymore.
Are you still switching back and forth between simplified and traditional, or are you fully Team Traditional now? I always type in traditional but honestly if I need to write characters, I’m lazy and still add some sneaky simplified characters in there
fancy 
