I am confused, I have always thought it was 何才、but now I’m seeing it written as 何歳 in some places. Are they the same? When would I use one and not the other ?
They mean the same thing and are interchangeable in casual context. I once heard someone say (as a joke) that if someone is writing their age down and they write 歳 it’s just to prove that they remember how to write that kanji
才 is a shorthand (but **not** a 略字) for 歳. Read more stuff not aimed at children and you’ll see 歳 is more common on the grounds that it’s what <number>さい is officially supposed to be. In all other printed contexts aside from evoking a child stating their age, 才 doesn’t inherently mean anything to do with age, whereas 歳 does. Adults will still occasionally handwrite it as 才 though, on the grounds that it’s less work and everyone knows what it’s supposed to mean when writing about age.
Also, when I say 才 is used in printed media to evoke a child stating their age, what I mean is that even if a book otherwise uses complex kanji, they may choose to opt for only kana and simple kanji when writing children’s dialogue since it becomes a visual cue. 歳 is taught in middle school, whereas 才 is taught in elementary grade 2.
歲 is the correct Character to use, but 才 is well known as a shorthand placeholder Character for 歲 due to the rather large difference in strokes and the shared valid reading
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They mean the same thing and are interchangeable in casual context. I once heard someone say (as a joke) that if someone is writing their age down and they write 歳 it’s just to prove that they remember how to write that kanji
才 is a shorthand (but **not** a 略字) for 歳. Read more stuff not aimed at children and you’ll see 歳 is more common on the grounds that it’s what <number>さい is officially supposed to be. In all other printed contexts aside from evoking a child stating their age, 才 doesn’t inherently mean anything to do with age, whereas 歳 does. Adults will still occasionally handwrite it as 才 though, on the grounds that it’s less work and everyone knows what it’s supposed to mean when writing about age.
Also, when I say 才 is used in printed media to evoke a child stating their age, what I mean is that even if a book otherwise uses complex kanji, they may choose to opt for only kana and simple kanji when writing children’s dialogue since it becomes a visual cue. 歳 is taught in middle school, whereas 才 is taught in elementary grade 2.
歲 is the correct Character to use, but 才 is well known as a shorthand placeholder Character for 歲 due to the rather large difference in strokes and the shared valid reading