As an American of Taiwanese descent, I have a preference for traditional Chinese characters. However, for ease of learning and for pragmatic reasons, I would suggest learning the simplified characters first. The traditional characters are used only in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and the overseas Chinese diaspora. Knowing the traditional characters will also give you instant access to 99% of the Japanese kanji in current use. The simplified characters are used in China, Malaysia, and Singapore. However, just the sheer number of simplified Chinese characters argues for its use by a foreign learner of Chinese. China has a population of 1.35 billion, Taiwan and Hong Kong combined have approximately 30 million. Simplified characters are also known as "simplified" exactly because the number of strokes per character has been reduced. This makes for easier learning for the non-native speaker. Once you have learned the simplified system, you can then proceed to learn the traditional script, which in my opinion, is a much more beautiful writing system, and opens your world to thousands of years of Chinese history and literature (although with computer technology, you can easily switch between scripts in electronic media). Example of a famous Chinese poem in traditional script: 月落烏啼霜滿天 江楓漁火對愁眠 姑蘇城外寒山寺 夜半鐘聲到客船 Same poem in simplified script 月落乌啼霜满天 江枫渔火对愁眠 姑苏城外寒山寺 夜半钟声到客船 In sum, once you have learned the simplified script, you can proceed relatively easily to the traditional script.

My opinion might be completely clashing with the above three commenters' suggestions. I've been studying Chinese for 6 or so years now, taking two years of simplified in high school (though high school is a joke), then 2 years of traditional in college followed by another 2 years of simplified in college. Although the initial learning curve is slightly higher for traditional than with simplified, transitioning from traditional --> simplified is a hell of a lot easier than simplified --> traditional. Traditional preserves many of the chinese radicals that got booted out of preference for boosting reading / writing / overall literacy rates in China. Whenever I read traditional, I can almost always guess the meaning of a character just from its parts if I don't recognize it, but with simplified there are far fewer distinctions. Also, the simplifications of Simplified Chinese sometimes don't make much sense, or they are incomplete. Examples... 登 [deng1] is a good example, as it represents the sound in these three characters: 燈 [deng1] --> 灯 the 登 part gets simplified into 丁 [ding1] 瞪 [deng4] --> 瞪 the part remains unchanged 鄧 [deng4] --> 邓 the part gets simplified into 又 [you4] And for minute distinctions with simplified characters... 於 [yu2] --> 于 干 [gan4] --> 干 stays the same, but looks similar to above at quick glance 乾 [gan2] --> 干 As a result this assigns two meanings to '干' 無 [wu2] --> 无 天 --> 天 stays the same, but looks similar to the above at quick glance Stupid simplifications: 沒有 --> 没有 夠 --> 够 There are plenty of other examples where simplified has made things more complicated, I'm just too lazy to look for them all right now. In short, traditional = harder learning curve, but makes more sense. Simplified = slightly easier on the eyes and easier to learn, but rather illogical at times.

it might have some thing related to the aethetic senses as some people said, yet since I'm no artist, so no comments on that aspect... however, really, I don't think the formation of either S or T has anything to do with the thousands of years of Chinese history/Culture... 正如禅宗故事里讲的“以手指月而该指非月”。。。 "you should see the moon which the finger's pointing at, instead of merely focusing on the finger" 又或王弼所言“得意忘象，得象忘言” “meanings slough off images, images slough off words” ... Words are merely vessels... so it's only a matter of preference... or pragmatic issue...

" the simpled is more easily to learn and understand " 不盡然 簡體字過於省略 造成 形近字 大量孳生 失去個別漢字原本所具有的圖像辨識的功能 反而提高了非母語學習者的識讀困難度 " I don't think the formation of either S or T has anything to do with the thousands of years of Chinese history/Culture..." 語言文字不就是歷史文化的載體嗎? 歷史文化不就是靠語言文字傳承嗎? 這裡每個人都從 空間上思考問題 而且也都不完全 不如從歷史 文化與國際關係的角度再觀察看看 簡體 : 正體 境內使用人口之比 : 中國 13億 : 台灣 2300萬 海外使用人口之比 : 東南亞 + 海外新橋社? : 日 韓 越 + 海外舊橋社 ? 歷史長度比 : 60 年 (1953) : ~ 2564 (BC551 孔子誕生) 或至遲 2215 年~ (BC202漢朝建立) 境內累積經典文獻與書法繪畫藝術比 : 0 : 1 海外累積經典文獻與書法繪畫藝術比 : 0 : 1 (日 韓 越等漢字文化圈內國家) 沒有 改為 没有 是忽視中國文字學的錯誤 而漢字簡化最大敗筆 是 1 中國人視漢字為一國獨有獨享 而忽略了 漢字其實也是其東亞漢字文化圈內國家的文化載體 此一事實 推行簡化漢字 切斷了與他國的文化聯繫 2 推行漢字 同時也斬斷了 中國人自己的文化傳承臍帶 但是 無論如何 無庸置疑的是 正簡字各擅一場 建議擇爾所好而學

The Simplified chinese characters enough ！ Our country general simplified Chinese !