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Can you "read" by a glance? | ||
Tags: Reading | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6595 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes  Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 17 of 31 10 January 2012 at 7:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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Brilliant! So much easier to read as well this way.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 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 18 of 31 11 January 2012 at 12:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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In china we have a proverb 一目十行, which means "read ten lines at a glance", indicating that people can read fast. I opened this thread mainly because I read something in a chinese forum about the nature of chinese, heres the translation: one can read ten lines at a glance in chinese, but if one tries to glance ten lines in languages of the latin family, he will miss a lot of information (which I will not miss in chinese). That chinese characters reflect the meanings instead of phonetics is the advantage of chinese.....well well well. Edited by lindseylbb on 11 January 2012 at 12:52pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 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 19 of 31 11 January 2012 at 12:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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For some weird reasons I cant edit it on my cellphone. Forgive my grammar... Edited by lindseylbb on 11 January 2012 at 12:55pm 1 person has 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 20 of 31 11 January 2012 at 3:53pm | IP Logged | ||
I think you underestimate the English orthography's reflection of meaning and overestimate that of Chinese. In English, words that are pronounced the same are often written differently, such as "nose" and "knows". This reflects that they are two different words, much like Chinese uses different characters for morphemes that are pronounced the same, as in 人 and 仁. Chinese also often uses the same character for two different morphemes, such as the 花 in 花钱 and the 花 in 花园. This is similar to how English sometimes uses the same spelling for different words, like how the "train" in "train harder" is different from the "train" in "subway train". In these ways, Chinese writing and English writing are alike. The main differene is that Chinese "spelling" uses hundreds of different elements that can be combined in a two-dimensional structure, whereas English uses only 26 elements combined in a one-dimensional structure. This means Chinese is a lot more compact, but it also means it's a lot harder to learn and remember, as well as some other downsides (such as the difficulties of coining new words, writing foreign sounds and inputting the language into a computer). Now, there's another difference that consists in the fact that Chinese uses certain elements that are wholly unrelated to phonetics, even historically. Certain elements in English spelling (such as the 'k' in "knows") are unrelated to current phonetics, but reflect earlier pronunciations. This is similar to how Chinese sometimes uses phonetic elements in characters even though they don't represent the current pronunciation of the character in some modern Chinese languages. But some elements, such as the grass radical in 花, has never had any relation to the phonetics, but are rather related to the meaning of the character's morpheme. However, the amount of information that can be drawn from this part of the character is very small. If it has a grass radical, it probably has something to do with plants (but maybe not, as in 花钱). For the purpose of gaining a quick understanding of a text, this difference between Chinese and English writing is pretty minimal. At the most, by scanning the page, if you see a lot of grass radicals, it probably has something to do with plants. Both English and Chinese has unique symbols that are tied to specific morphemes. The English "knows" isn't simply a phonetic representation of the sound; it's a unique symbol of a specific morpheme, different from other symbols that represent morphemes that sound exactly the same. The meaning of these symbols can only be interpreted if you know the word, just like you cannot guess the meaning of a Chinese character with any accuracy unless you know the morpheme it represents. The idea that Chinese characters represent the "meaning" of words rather than their pronunciation is, if not false, then at least only true to a very small degree. Chinese characters are not logographs, they're not symbolic writing. This is a popular misconception amongst both westerners and Chinese. If you want a technical term, I've seen them named "morphosyllabic", but y'know, whatever. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| fiziwig Senior Member United States Joined 4677 days ago 297 posts - 618 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 21 of 31 11 January 2012 at 6:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think that the key issue here is that most people probably believe that their own native language is the "best" language for one "reason" or another, when the real reason is their own familiarity with their native language.
In the time it would take me to learn Chinese well enough to read at a glance I could probably read a thousand novels in English. (2 novels a week for ten years). Does that mean that English is a thousand times faster to read than Chinese? No. It means that English is a thousand times faster for me to read than Chinese. For non-native speakers the most important issue is not how fast can a native speaker read, but how fast a non-native speaker can learn to read as well as a native speaker? In that department Chinese is probably one of the worst languages in the world in terms of amount of effort required to learn each individual new word. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6249 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 22 of 31 11 January 2012 at 11:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am a native English speaker.
I read words by their "shapes" rather than by sounding them out. I can also use this to "cheat" and read words on signs that are too far away and I cannot see each individual letter, but I know what the word is from its shape. That being said, I am a terribly slow reader. I have to actually say everything in my head as I am reading, so I read at about the same speed I talk. But I think that's because I have OCD and have to do it that way. They tried to teach us speed reading in high school. Even doing the exercises and stuff, my retention rate (while speed reading) was very low. My retention rate during normal reading is pretty high. I have no problem reading out loud. I can even read out loud very fast if I am skimming something to somebody. But my maximum reading speed is limited by how quickly I can say the words in my head. It sucks! I recognize that this is probably a neurological limitation of OCD and NOT a limitation of the English language. I have a few friends who read extremely quickly. I'm always impressed. Edited by IronFist on 11 January 2012 at 11:15pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sandman Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5220 days ago 168 posts - 389 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Japanese | Message 23 of 31 13 January 2012 at 3:04am | IP Logged | ||
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1,946,822
vs. One million, nine hundred and fourty-six thousand, eight hundred and twenty-two. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| egill Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5508 days ago 418 posts - 791 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 24 of 31 13 January 2012 at 5:30am | IP Logged | ||
Yes, because a positional symbolic number system is the exact same thing as Chinese characters. Exactly. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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