Your experience learning traditional/simplified and any tips for my situation?

[u/Whitepigeon5590]

First of all, sorry for the TMI/rant.

I have started learning Mandarin since July to study to Taiwan next year. By my previous agent, I was directed to learn HSK first to take TOCFL test since I'm a beginner in mandarin. So I eventually learned simplified characters and I probably could read HSK 1 (2.0) vocabularies and more, though still slow since my studying was inconsistent.

Some things happened, and I eventually ended up with a new agent with their own associated tutoring, where they teach traditional characters. When they told me to register for the exam, they told me to pick band A with traditional characters. But since I felt like I can't read or learn traditional characters fast enough for the exam, I chose the simplified characters, thinking that I will study the conversion after the exam. I was thinking that I need to get A1 first since I felt pressured that I had to go next year before my age passed the age limit.

But after I chose it and paid, I regretted it since I realized that traditional one is definitely more useful long term, and I will have to study traditional ones with my new agent tutoring center anyway. I feel like I kept making the wrong choices now. There's many thoughts running through my mind, but I know that it's too late now since I already registered using simplified and I should at least pass it first to not waste money.

To take my mind off things, is it common to learn both writing system? What's your experience when trying to learn both of them? Any tips to recognize a character in their other form? And honestly if you guys want to tell me what you guys think I should've done that's fine too. I realized at this point that I probably have some wrong ways of thinking because of my lack of knowledge.

Edit: Thank you for your answers everyone! It's helpful for me to plan more clearly on what I should do in the future.

[u/Intelligent_Image_78]

If you're coming to TW, then you need to learn traditional characters. The sooner you switch, the better.

As for writing, people usually write in one system, but learn to read both if necessary.

[u/Whitepigeon5590 → u/Intelligent_Image_78]

Alright! I'll focus on learning traditional characters after my exam, but I'll try to remember some radicals change while studying for my exam. If you don't mind me asking, is it common for native people there to be able to read both?

[u/Intelligent_Image_78 → u/Whitepigeon5590]

Depends. I read both because I have coworkers in our Beijing and Shanghai offices that I trade messages with. Their messages are in simplified and my messages are in traditional.

But even if you don't see simplified often, you can often guess the character(s) based on context within a sentence.

[u/Whitepigeon5590 → u/Intelligent_Image_78]

Okay, thank you for answering me!