Simplified Chinese and compatibility with spoken Chinese language: How it works with iOS (VoiceOver) and Android (TalkBack)

Question

I'm designing a Multi-language app and a major user group is Chinese speaking people with disability. The app will be on both iOS and Android. I don't speak or read any chinese language.

The app content for Chinese speaking users will be in Chinese Simplified (lang='zh-Hans'). We want to ensure that the content will be compatible, usable and understandable with the native screen reading software.

The app will provide information on emergency situations, so it's critical that important information not be lost in translation.

My questions:

iOS If an iOS user is using VoiceOver and iOS is set to either Mandarin (China mainland), Mandarin (Taiwan) or Cantonese (Hong Kong) - How does Simplified Chinese read out? Is it understandable to native speakers of the above languages?

Android If an Android user is using TalkBack and Android is set to either Cantonese (Hong Kong), Chinese (China), Chinese (Taiwan) - How does Simplified Chinese read out? Is it understandable to native speakers of the above languages?

Answer 1

Computer scientist here:

You should use traditional chinese (zh-tw) and then convert that to zh-Hans. There is a one to many relationship between zh-tw and zh-Hans so it's just a dictionary lookup for any text IF you go from traditional to simplified. If you're using Python, this library does it fine: https://pypi.org/project/chinese-converter/. If you do your development in simplified there is no way to auto-convert it to traditional (though I'll tell you from experience that the Google Translate API does it with high reliability). Subsequently, unless you're really dead set on only targeting mainland China and Singapore, it makes a lot more sense to do your translation in traditional and then just autoconvert that to simplified. The only major consideration there is if you're going to be using slang which does differ significantly in the various regions.

For example - in simplified Chinese they took 瞭 and 了, which both exist but with potentially different meanings in the traditional chinese character set and merged those both into just 了. If you start with traditional a simple dictionary lookup will get you the correct simplified chinese version. However, if you start with simplified, there is no foolproof dictionary lookup that will get you the correct traditional. Best you can do is feed it into translation software which uses user-taught statistical analysis to guess the correct one. Here is some very simple code I wrote for converting books I find online from simplified to traditional using Google's API: https://github.com/grantcurell/simplified_to_traditional. WARNING: There are character limits and if you hit the API to fast Google will block you.

As far as how voice works - traditional / simplified Chinese characters are pronounced the same way. The only variation is some regional preferences in tones. The character sets are mutually intelligible. I predominantly read in traditional but can read both. If you write something in simplified chinese and have it read out loud anyone in the Mandarin speaking world will understand what was said.

That said, it requires more effort for me to read simplified and I'm much less likely to use an app that only supports simplified characters. It's not that I can't read them, I just have to think about it more which can be obnoxious.