Should I study/practice traditional or simplified Chinese characters? I'm about to return to taking Mandarin classes. I last left off about five years ago (at the level of second-year Mandarin) and I was learning at that time traditional hanzi. I've previously formally studied and am reasonably fluent in Japanese. I will be using Mandarin in the future academically, for the most part. For example, I will be looking at manhua, older Buddhist texts (probably not prior to mid-19th century), and academic articles. I don't have any sense in mind at this point that my work would involve more Taiwan/Hong Kong, i.e., traditional hanzi, connections than mainland China, i.e., simplified hanzi, connections, or vice versa. Can anyone who has experience working with Chinese, especially but not necessarily in an academic context, give me some advice on which I should focus on learning as I start back into Mandarin? Thanks!