Chinese Characters
Chinese do not have alphabets.
The "words" are called characters or "hàn zì" in Mandarin Chinese.
The two characters "hàn zì" can be written as 漢字 or 汉字.
Why are they written differently?
Do you know that there are two sets of Chinese writing systems?
You might have heard "traditional characters" or "simplified characters". So what is the big deal? Or what is the difference?
Chinese Characters have gone through stages of change and evolved to the modern day writing. The traditional writing refers to the characters before the China government changed the writing. The changes in the writing system occurred to promote literacy when many hard to write characters had been "simplified". The current simplified set of characters was completed in 1964. There was another round of changes later but was retracted.
The democratic government in Taiwan preserved the writing system and has promoted the history and the beauty of these "traditional characters". Children in Taiwan still learn to read and write the traditional characters but children in China learn the simplified ones. Most adults can read both sets of writing with just a little extra study.
Actually, the two sets of characters are not that different. Only about 20% of the characters had undergone the makeover. Here are the characters for the 12 Chinese Zodiac animals in both systems. Can you tell which set is the traditional and which is the simplified?