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Can you "read" by a glance? | ||
Tags: Reading | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| lindseylbb Bilingual Triglot Groupie ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4744 days ago 92 posts - 126 votes  Speaks: Mandarin*, Cantonese*, English Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 1 of 31 09 January 2012 at 2:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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I always think chinese is a unique language because it uses characters. Not much language do that in the modern world. Using characters we chinese can roughly understand a paragraph with a single glance, in several seconds and sometimes even less than a second, then we can catch the point or find what we need pretty soon. It's said that because mandarin combines the characters with meaning, people can read fast etc. and that languages using alphabet cant do that. They are codes so they have to function as chains.. I dont know if I get myself clear with my broken English. I cant read English as fast as I read chinese or catch the main idea through glance. I am not that good at English of course, but is there anything to do with the nature of language using alphabets? Can native speakers do the glance thing? Edited by lindseylbb on 09 January 2012 at 2:11pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6394 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 2 of 31 09 January 2012 at 2:09pm | IP Logged | ||
Yup. Nobody who's good at their language read out the letters. Natives recognise the shape of the word, pretty much the same way Chinese recognise characters. 10 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6251 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 3 of 31 09 January 2012 at 2:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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Chinese probably has an advantage because of being so compact, but it's definitely possible to read a lot at a glance in languages with alphabets.
I occasionally read a lot at a glance even in Cyrillic, which I only learned to read a couple of years ago. It's an everyday occurrence for me in languages I read well (all of which use the Latin alphabet I first learned, essentially). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6515 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 31 09 January 2012 at 4:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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If you can speedread then I suppose you can "read at a glance" - you certainly don't have time to spell each word and even less to read each word aloud. One central point in speedreading is that you run down a page while fixating at a limited number of points, and then you absorb what is there before skipping to the next point. Only beginners have to read word after word. Edited by Iversen on 09 January 2012 at 11:44pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 4942 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 5 of 31 09 January 2012 at 4:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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I would imagine that initially learning Chinese or any character-based written system is probably easier to learn than an alphabet system.
Since I'm learning Georgian this year, I'm going through the very child-like motions of sounding out every word I read. It's frustrating for an adult, because while I'm comfortable with the alphabet at this point, I'm a long way off from recognising whole words and their shapes, as Ari points out. R. == Edited by hrhenry on 09 January 2012 at 4:30pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5120 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 6 of 31 09 January 2012 at 6:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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I believe it's the same in both languages, but since Chinese is more compact both in size and in grammar (fewer grammar words), it's usually faster to glance Chinese. If you try shorter and more familiar English words and put them closer to each other, I believe you could glance just as fast as you do Chinese.
How are you ? Bye bye. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6515 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 31 09 January 2012 at 11:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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I would find it easier to read the text in this way:
How are you ? Bye bye. For illustrative purposes I have marked two fixating points. On a normal line in a normal book 2-4 fixating points should be enough in your native or another wellknown language. In less wellknown languages it may be necessary to read 'packages' of just one or two words, and with an new alphabet you may have to spell each word out. SO what about the vertical dimension? As I said I don't read smallwhite's arrangement as well as the more traditional one above, though this might be the result of less training. However when I read linewise I do notice the upcoming lines below, and even though I don't read them consciously there may be an gain in reading speed because of the unconscious preparation. This hypothesis could theoretically be tested by letting a piece of paper with a cut-out area slide down the page, but I suspect that the unaccostumed and forced arrangement and the problem of choosing the correct speed would mean an unrealistic slow reading speed. Edited by Iversen on 09 January 2012 at 11:48pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4834 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 8 of 31 10 January 2012 at 12:02am | IP Logged | ||
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OP: As a native speaker of English, yes I can read 99.9% of things with a meer glance, as if my brain has proccesed it pretty much instantly. That goes for words and most sentences, but no, definetly not whole paragraphs at a time, I have to scan line by line.
That sounds like a very interesting feature of the Chinese alphabet, that one is able to do that so fast! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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