<p>You're looking at shapes according to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variant_Chinese_character#Origins_of_variants" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Kangxi dictionary form</a>, a variant of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_typeface" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Ming typeface</a>. Both 「八」 and 「丷」 shapes will end up looking like</p>

<p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/GAEbX.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/GAEbX.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>

<p>as part of other characters. It's better to try to get your font to display a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script" rel="nofollow noreferrer">regular script</a> font (e.g. 標楷體) instead of a Ming typeface font when you're learning.</p>

<hr>

<p>Print shapes that you see for 「关」 are normally consistent with the right hand side of 「朕」. 「关」 itself is a shape rather than a true character or character component; the shape is variously a handwriting corruption of the right hand side of 「」, a corruption of 「」, an abbreviation of the inner part of 「關」, among others. Because 「关」 is not really a character with a firm historical basis, it will be subject to various unrecognisable shape changes across regions and fonts - most regions simply don’t even use/recognise it as a character.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-03-25T00:50:31.700Z
2020-03-25T23:44:33.383Z
2020-03-25T23:44:33.383Z
dROOOze
<p>They are stylistic choices of the different fonts as well as standards selected by the authorities. Taiwanese fonts usually exhibit 八 and HK/CN usually use 丷 instead</p>
<p>This is the Wikipedia article describing the Taiwanese standardization.</p>
<p><a href="https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-mo/%E5%9C%8B%E5%AD%97%E6%A8%99%E6%BA%96%E5%AD%97%E9%AB%94" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-mo/%E5%9C%8B%E5%AD%97%E6%A8%99%E6%BA%96%E5%AD%97%E9%AB%94</a></p>
<p>This is the official document by Ministry of Education ROC, explaining the the standardization.</p>
<p><a href="https://language.moe.gov.tw/001/Upload/files/SITE_CONTENT/M0001/BIAU/c12.htm" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://language.moe.gov.tw/001/Upload/files/SITE_CONTENT/M0001/BIAU/c12.htm</a></p>
<p><a href="https://language.moe.gov.tw/001/Upload/files/SITE_CONTENT/M0001/BIAU/f70.htm?open" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://language.moe.gov.tw/001/Upload/files/SITE_CONTENT/M0001/BIAU/f70.htm?open</a></p>
<p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/0BX2M.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/0BX2M.png" alt="enter image description here" /></a></p>
<p>The entire document is summerized in this PDF, but it's quite broken in my viewer: <a href="http://163.20.160.14/%7Emoodle/pluginfile.php/339/mod_resource/content/3/%E6%A8%99%E6%BA%96%E5%AD%97%E9%AB%94-%E6%B2%BF%E9%9D%A9.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://163.20.160.14/~moodle/pluginfile.php/339/mod_resource/content/3/%E6%A8%99%E6%BA%96%E5%AD%97%E9%AB%94-%E6%B2%BF%E9%9D%A9.pdf</a></p>
<hr />
<p>Hong Kong opted for 丷 as described in this document: <a href="http://input.foruto.com/ccc/gongbiu/dzijingbiu/doc/dzijingbiu_ji-pin.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://input.foruto.com/ccc/gongbiu/dzijingbiu/doc/dzijingbiu_ji-pin.pdf</a> of the 常用字字形表, explained in <a href="https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B8%B8%E7%94%A8%E5%AD%97%E5%AD%97%E5%BD%A2%E8%A1%A8" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this Wikipedia article</a>. This standardization is followed by the Hong Kong Education Bureau.</p>
<p>All other documents are listed under: <a href="http://input.foruto.com/ccc/gongbiu/dzijingbiu/index.htm" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://input.foruto.com/ccc/gongbiu/dzijingbiu/index.htm</a></p>
<p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/Ymmo8.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/Ymmo8.png" alt="enter image description here" /></a></p>
<p>In this excerpt, the left is the standard, whereas the right is non-standard.</p>
<hr />
<p><strong>Regarding the conclusive answer,</strong> if your font shows 八 in 兌/关, it is most likely a font following the Taiwanese standard. The Taiwanese government assisted the development of the first Chinese translated Windows, so the Microsoft fonts PMingLiu/KaiTi are mostly following Taiwanese standards.</p>
<p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/VCu1n.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/VCu1n.png" alt="enter image description here" /></a></p>
<p>The image is from: <a href="https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E5%85%B3" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E5%85%B3</a>, a site that documents characters. From left to right [Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong] (They used to also document characters used in Korean Hanja and Japanese Kanji). <strong>Also notice the dian (點) instead of na (捺) for the last stroke, used in the Taiwanese version</strong></p>
<p>However, <strong>if a font isn't a Taiwanese font, it isn't limited to being a PRC font.</strong> In fact, Chinese characters are used in other East Asian countries/regions: Vietnam, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, etc.</p>
<p>And <strong>being in a certain physical region does not equate to a local font is used</strong>. Take the public transit service in Hong Kong, MTR, for an example, their Ming (serif) fonts are well known to be Japanese fonts, as indicated by the use of a vertical stroke (Japanese) in 亠 instead of a dian (HK).</p>
<hr />
<p>As for the horizontal stroke in 八, it is most likely a stylistic decision of the font as I couldn't find relevant information online.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-04-21T07:03:11.390Z
2020-04-21T07:24:30.110Z
2020-06-17T09:50:11.587Z
Daniel Cheung
<p>Probably a font thing. You need to install the correct font based on what variation of Chinese you're learning. You can google how to do that. cf <a href="https://blog.skritter.com/2015/05/dealing-with-font-issues-when-learning-chinese/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://blog.skritter.com/2015/05/dealing-with-font-issues-when-learning-chinese/</a></p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-03-24T01:59:59.797Z
2020-03-24T02:05:12.383Z
2020-03-24T02:05:12.383Z
Betty
<p>I had this problem in Gmail, Facebook and Whatsapp.
My language was set to Traditional Chinese. I solved the problem by setting it to Simplified Chinese.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-03-10T01:05:57.813Z
2022-03-10T01:05:57.813Z
dan
<p>In fact, a character may have different appearance in Simplified and Traditional Chinese, as well as in Japanese. <br/> I guess the first screenshot is web browser on computer. You could go the language setting of your browser (such as Chrome), then add Simplified or Traditional Chinese into the language list, depending on what you learned at class. In this way, the browser will load  the font you preferred. <br/> As for the app on your phone, go to the settings>language, then add Simplified or Traditional Chinese into the language list. (Your interface language will still be in English)</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-03-24T21:26:10.937Z
2020-03-24T21:26:10.937Z
Bósài
<p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/bLQbx.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/bLQbx.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>

<p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/qoWxI.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/qoWxI.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>

<p>The Chinese characters appear so strange after I've typed them on my computer and on one of my Chinese apps on my phone. For example, 十分 is different on the photo I've attached than what I am typing just now. I think it happened after I changed the language settings on my phone to Chinese and then back to English. It seems like my google account, which is connected to my phone and computer when I'm surfing, has noticed. </p>

<p>Any ideas for a solution to this problem?</p>

<characters>
Why do the Chinese characters on my phone and computer look weird?
# Why do the Chinese characters on my phone and computer look weird?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2020-03-23)

[![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/bLQbx.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/bLQbx.png)

[![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/qoWxI.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/qoWxI.png)

The Chinese characters appear so strange after I've typed them on my computer and on one of my Chinese apps on my phone. For example, 十分 is different on the photo I've attached than what I am typing just now. I think it happened after I changed the language settings on my phone to Chinese and then back to English. It seems like my google account, which is connected to my phone and computer when I'm surfing, has noticed.

Any ideas for a solution to this problem?

**Tags:** characters


---

## 5 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2020-03-25. Score: 3

You're looking at shapes according to the [Kangxi dictionary form](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variant_Chinese_character#Origins_of_variants), a variant of [Ming typeface](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_typeface). Both 「八」 and 「丷」 shapes will end up looking like

[![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/GAEbX.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/GAEbX.png)

as part of other characters. It's better to try to get your font to display a [regular script](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script) font (e.g. 標楷體) instead of a Ming typeface font when you're learning.

---

Print shapes that you see for 「关」 are normally consistent with the right hand side of 「朕」. 「关」 itself is a shape rather than a true character or character component; the shape is variously a handwriting corruption of the right hand side of 「」, a corruption of 「」, an abbreviation of the inner part of 「關」, among others. Because 「关」 is not really a character with a firm historical basis, it will be subject to various unrecognisable shape changes across regions and fonts - most regions simply don’t even use/recognise it as a character.


---

### Answer by username_2 on 2020-04-21. Score: 3

They are stylistic choices of the different fonts as well as standards selected by the authorities. Taiwanese fonts usually exhibit 八 and HK/CN usually use 丷 instead

This is the Wikipedia article describing the Taiwanese standardization.

<https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-mo/%E5%9C%8B%E5%AD%97%E6%A8%99%E6%BA%96%E5%AD%97%E9%AB%94>

This is the official document by Ministry of Education ROC, explaining the the standardization.

<https://language.moe.gov.tw/001/Upload/files/SITE_CONTENT/M0001/BIAU/c12.htm>

<https://language.moe.gov.tw/001/Upload/files/SITE_CONTENT/M0001/BIAU/f70.htm?open>

[![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/0BX2M.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/0BX2M.png)

The entire document is summerized in this PDF, but it's quite broken in my viewer: [http://163.20.160.14/~moodle/pluginfile.php/339/mod\_resource/content/3/%E6%A8%99%E6%BA%96%E5%AD%97%E9%AB%94-%E6%B2%BF%E9%9D%A9.pdf](http://163.20.160.14/%7Emoodle/pluginfile.php/339/mod_resource/content/3/%E6%A8%99%E6%BA%96%E5%AD%97%E9%AB%94-%E6%B2%BF%E9%9D%A9.pdf)

---

Hong Kong opted for 丷 as described in this document: <http://input.foruto.com/ccc/gongbiu/dzijingbiu/doc/dzijingbiu_ji-pin.pdf> of the 常用字字形表, explained in [this Wikipedia article](https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B8%B8%E7%94%A8%E5%AD%97%E5%AD%97%E5%BD%A2%E8%A1%A8). This standardization is followed by the Hong Kong Education Bureau.

All other documents are listed under: <http://input.foruto.com/ccc/gongbiu/dzijingbiu/index.htm>

[![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/Ymmo8.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/Ymmo8.png)

In this excerpt, the left is the standard, whereas the right is non-standard.

---

**Regarding the conclusive answer,** if your font shows 八 in 兌/关, it is most likely a font following the Taiwanese standard. The Taiwanese government assisted the development of the first Chinese translated Windows, so the Microsoft fonts PMingLiu/KaiTi are mostly following Taiwanese standards.

[![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/VCu1n.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/VCu1n.png)

The image is from: <https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E5%85%B3>, a site that documents characters. From left to right [Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong] (They used to also document characters used in Korean Hanja and Japanese Kanji). **Also notice the dian (點) instead of na (捺) for the last stroke, used in the Taiwanese version**

However, **if a font isn't a Taiwanese font, it isn't limited to being a PRC font.** In fact, Chinese characters are used in other East Asian countries/regions: Vietnam, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, etc.

And **being in a certain physical region does not equate to a local font is used**. Take the public transit service in Hong Kong, MTR, for an example, their Ming (serif) fonts are well known to be Japanese fonts, as indicated by the use of a vertical stroke (Japanese) in 亠 instead of a dian (HK).

---

As for the horizontal stroke in 八, it is most likely a stylistic decision of the font as I couldn't find relevant information online.


---

### Answer by username_3 on 2020-03-24. Score: 1

Probably a font thing. You need to install the correct font based on what variation of Chinese you're learning. You can google how to do that. cf <https://blog.skritter.com/2015/05/dealing-with-font-issues-when-learning-chinese/>


---

### Answer by username_4 on 2022-03-10. Score: 0

I had this problem in Gmail, Facebook and Whatsapp.
My language was set to Traditional Chinese. I solved the problem by setting it to Simplified Chinese.


---

### Answer by username_5 on 2020-03-24. Score: 0

In fact, a character may have different appearance in Simplified and Traditional Chinese, as well as in Japanese.   
 I guess the first screenshot is web browser on computer. You could go the language setting of your browser (such as Chrome), then add Simplified or Traditional Chinese into the language list, depending on what you learned at class. In this way, the browser will load the font you preferred.   
 As for the app on your phone, go to the settings>language, then add Simplified or Traditional Chinese into the language list. (Your interface language will still be in English)


---

