For those who would like to teach their young children Chinese, we do have Chinese Content for Little Reader available at our Online Store or at selected local distributors. The Little Reader Chinese Curriculum teaches Mandarin Chinese (for the spoken language), and there is an option to get the curriculum in Simplified or Traditional written format.

The difference between the two versions is that Simplified Chinese characters are used in the Simplified Chinese Curriculum and Traditional Chinese characters are used in the Traditional Chinese Curriculum.

Generally speaking, Simplified Chinese characters are easier to write and learn because these have fewer strokes compared with Traditional Chinese characters -- this is because the former are simplified forms of the Traditional Chinese characters. On the other hand, each Traditional Chinese character usually consists of many strokes which serve to illustrate what the character means or the idea it represents.

For example, for the word "write," the Chinese word is written as 写 in Simplified Chinese and as 寫 in Traditional Chinese (read as "xiě" in Mandarin).

In addition to the difference in form between Simplified and Traditional Chinese characters, the use of either written language differs in certain countries or regions. For example, Simplified Chinese is used in Mainland China, Malaysia and Singapore, while Traditional Chinese is used in Macau, Hong Kong, Taiwan and many overseas Chinese communities. If you've enrolled your child in a Chinese language class, you may consider getting the Chinese content version that matches what's being taught in your child's class.