Simplified-Traditional Chinese Converter
Convert between Simplified and Traditional Chinese with Taiwan and Hong Kong standards
What is Simplified-Traditional Conversion?
The Chinese converter transforms text between Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese while accounting for more than individual character shapes. Simplified Chinese is mainly used in Mainland China and Singapore, while Traditional Chinese is common in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and many overseas Chinese communities.
Real localization often requires attention to regional vocabulary, technical terms, place names, punctuation habits, and audience expectations, not just one-to-one character replacement. It can help with websites, documents, product copy, subtitles, and support articles, but legal, medical, brand-sensitive, or public-facing materials should still be reviewed by native speakers familiar with the target region.
How to Use
How to use
- Paste or enter Chinese text in the left input box
- Click a button below to select conversion method (Simplified to Traditional, Traditional to Simplified, Taiwan Traditional, Hong Kong Traditional)
- Converted text appears automatically in the right output box
- Click 'Copy' to save the result, or 'Swap' to reverse the conversion
Localization Tips
- Character conversion is not the same as full localization; regional vocabulary, punctuation, and product terminology may still need manual review.
- For legal, medical, brand, or public-facing copy, ask a native speaker from the target region to check the converted result.
Use Cases
Technical Principle
Conversion is driven by OpenCC (Open Chinese Convert) lexicon files rather than naive character-by-character substitution. OpenCC ships separate dictionaries for each conversion direction - s2t (Simplified to Traditional), t2s (Traditional to Simplified), s2tw (Simplified to Taiwan), s2hk (Simplified to Hong Kong), s2twp (Simplified to Taiwan with phrase conversion), tw2sp (Taiwan to Simplified with phrase) - and applies them through a maximum-forward-match segmentation that prefers the longest matching phrase from a precompiled trie. This is why a single Simplified character such as 后 can correctly split between 后 (queen, kept) and 後 (after, mapped) depending on the surrounding word: 皇后 matches the phrase dictionary before the character dictionary fires. The character data lives in the CJK Unified Ideographs block U+4E00-U+9FFF, with extensions A (U+3400-U+4DBF) and B (U+20000-U+2A6DF) for rarer glyphs. JavaScript strings are UTF-16, so an extension-B character occupies a surrogate pair (two code units) and the converter must iterate by code point rather than by .charAt index to avoid splitting a surrogate. Regional variants are handled by chaining dictionaries: s2tw runs the base s2t mapping, then a Taiwan-specific vocabulary substitution (例如 软件 -> 軟體, 网络 -> 網路, 内存 -> 記憶體), while s2hk applies a Hong Kong table that keeps 軟件 and prefers 視像 over 視頻. The phrase tables encode the cultural divergence that started after the 1956 Simplification Scheme in the PRC and continues with Taiwan's MOE recommendations and Hong Kong's Education Bureau lists. Lossless round-tripping is not guaranteed: 干 in Simplified merges 干 (dry, stem), 乾 (dry), and 幹 (do, trunk), so s2t followed by t2s on a sentence containing 乾 may resolve back to 干 and then re-expand differently in a new context. Punctuation conversion (half-width 「」 to full-width quotes, or Mainland 「」 vs Taiwan 『』 nesting) is a separate dictionary pass and not all engines enable it by default. Treat OpenCC output as a high-quality starting draft for regional copy; brand names, proper nouns, and recently coined technical terms still need a human review against the target market's actual usage.
- Maximum-forward-match segmentation over a precompiled phrase trie, not blind character substitution.
- Source range CJK Unified Ideographs U+4E00-U+9FFF; extension B at U+20000+ is encoded as a UTF-16 surrogate pair.
- One-to-many mappings (后/後/后, 干/乾/幹/榦, 发/發/髮) are resolved by phrase context, not by character alone.
- Variant chains: s2t -> TWVariants for s2tw, s2t -> HKVariants for s2hk, with optional phrase tables (s2twp).
- Conversion is not always reversible: round-tripping s2t then t2s can collapse merged Simplified characters back to a different Traditional form.
- Iterate by Unicode code point (for..of or Array.from) so surrogate-paired characters are not split into halves.
- Punctuation conversion (e.g. quotation-mark style) lives in a separate dictionary and must be toggled explicitly.
Examples
Simplified to Traditional (basic words)
Input : 学习中文很有趣，我喜欢看电视和听音乐。
Output : 學習中文很有趣，我喜歡看電視和聽音樂。
Notes : Standard character-by-character mapping using OpenCC s2t.Traditional to Simplified
Input : 請打開電腦，然後啟動瀏覽器。
Output : 请打开电脑，然后启动浏览器。
Notes : Useful for porting Taiwan/HK articles to a Mainland audience.Simplified to Taiwan Traditional (with vocabulary)
Input : 这个软件的网络连接出现问题，请检查内存。
Output : 這個軟體的網路連線出現問題，請檢查記憶體。
Notes : 软件->軟體, 网络->網路, 连接->連線, 内存->記憶體 (TW localized terms).Simplified to Hong Kong Traditional (HK terms)
Input : 这个软件支持视频通话和打印功能。
Output : 這個軟件支援視像通話和打印功能。
Notes : 软件->軟件 (HK keeps 軟件), 视频->視像 (HK preferred term).One-to-many character: 后 vs 後
Input : 皇后走在皇帝的后面。
Output : 皇后走在皇帝的後面。
Explain: 皇后 (empress) stays as 后, but 后面 (behind) converts to 後面.FAQ
What's the difference between Simplified and Traditional Chinese?
Simplified Chinese (简体) is used in mainland China and Singapore; characters were systematically simplified starting in the 1950s (e.g. 龍 → 龙). Traditional Chinese (繁體) is used in Taiwan and Hong Kong, retaining the older character forms. Some characters look identical in both.
Are Taiwan and Hong Kong traditional the same?
Mostly, but not always. Taiwan uses 'Standard Form of National Characters' (國字標準字體) while Hong Kong uses the 'List of Graphemes of Commonly-Used Chinese Characters' (常用字字形表). They differ on a few hundred characters - 裡/裏, 麼/麽, 著/着 - so picking the right region matters for native readers.
Will the conversion preserve word boundaries?
Character-by-character conversion preserves the original spacing exactly. The page also applies a phrase-level dictionary so that 計算機 ↔ 計算機/电脑 and 软件 ↔ 軟體 are handled correctly across the strait, not just the visual character form.
Is the conversion lossless?
Simplified-to-traditional is sometimes ambiguous because one simplified character can correspond to multiple traditional forms - 后 maps to 后 (queen) or 後 (after). The page uses context heuristics but cannot guarantee correctness on every word; double-check important text.
Does it handle vertical text or punctuation?
Punctuation is converted (， ↔ ，；。↔ 。 are the same; some quotes 「」/“”/'' switch by region). Vertical layout is a display concern, not a conversion concern - copy the result and paste into a vertical-layout container.
Why does it sometimes convert 'phone' as 電話 and sometimes 電話?
The two are the same string. Some applications use slightly different code points (compatibility variants) for visually identical characters. The output uses the standard form for the chosen region; if a downstream tool flags it as 'wrong', that tool is comparing against a non-standard variant.
Is the text uploaded?
No. Conversion uses an in-browser dictionary and runs locally. Pasted text never leaves your device.