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Reading: Latin vs Other Alphabets | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| global_gizzy Senior Member United States maxcollege.blogspot. Joined 5704 days ago 275 posts - 310 votes  Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 28 18 December 2010 at 3:49am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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It is easier for me to read a language written with the Latin Alphabet than it is for me
to read something like Arabic for example. Is there a term for this? Is this the case for others also? I was taught to read Arabic growing up, and it could be said that I've been reading Arabic since I was about 5 or 6. However, I rarely read Arabic, especially with the use of transliteration and such. I can read up several times faster in a Latin script, no matter what the language than I can any other alphabet. Please tell me if this is common? 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Louis Triglot Groupie Italy Joined 5731 days ago 92 posts - 110 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish | Message 2 of 28 18 December 2010 at 7:43am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Well, according to a recent study, it is harder for the brain to process Arabic script due to its "graphic complexity".
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 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 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 3 of 28 18 December 2010 at 9:30am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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What are the differences between Arabic script and Latin script? The direction might be relevant, but my guess is that it isn't. As far as I know there are up to four shapes of each letter, the vowels are often (mostly) left out and everything hangs together. I always write the vowels, but apart from that my handwriting would probably be just as difficult to learn as Arabic. So a just comparison would be between Arabic handwriting and oldfashioned Latin handwriting where you left out most of the vowels. Edited by Iversen on 18 December 2010 at 9:40am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Andrew C Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom naturalarabic.com Joined 5191 days ago 205 posts - 350 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written) | Message 4 of 28 18 December 2010 at 11:44am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
It's called illiteracy :)
This study was only for children reading individual words. There is no suggestion that once the process of reading is automated, Arabic is any harder than Latin based scripts. EDIT: Sorry I think the article also looked at adult readers, but the results focus on the difficulty of the early stages of reading before the process in automated.
Yes you're right, Arabic is a cursive script so the letters join together like handwriting. What basically happens is that in isolation the letters have "tails", but when the letters join together they lose their tails. To read you have to look at the letter shape and count the number of dots above or below it. It's very easy and can be learned in a day. Edited by Andrew C on 18 December 2010 at 12:44pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5321 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 5 of 28 18 December 2010 at 12:35pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
IMHO, this study is biased and has already been discussed in the following two threads: What makes Arabic difficult? Brain Study: Reading Arabic Isn't Easy IMHO, the Arabic alphabet is no more complicated than for example the Cyrillic alphabet. The missing vowel signs are a problem for beginners, but intermediate and advanced learners and of course native speakers have few problems understanding unvowelled Arabic. However, since the vowels are no longer written, many native speakers often pronounce Arabic words according to their own interpretation of the unwritten vowel signs. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6471 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 6 of 28 18 December 2010 at 12:49pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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For what it's worth, reading the Greek alphabet can become as easy as reading the Latin
alphabet. "Harry Potter and the philosopher's stone" was the first novel I read in Greek. I started out needing 3-4 minutes per page and by the end of it I was down to just 1 minute per page, comparable to my reading speed in French, while German and English still go a bit faster. I also acquired a lot of vocabulary on the way. Force yourself to read a complete novel in Arabic and see if you don't find it a lot easier by the end. If it's not much fun right now, I recommend a thrilling book or one that keeps your interest well - Dan Brown is a possibility. At this point I read English somewhat faster than German, but it has nothing to do with the language, just that I read disproportionately many English-language books in the past 10 years. I used to be against translations; now I'm seeking out the books I want to read in my target language in order to get a little more language time in. English is too overwhelmingly present. Edited by Sprachprofi on 18 December 2010 at 12:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Segata Triglot Groupie Germany Joined 5172 days ago 64 posts - 125 votes Speaks: German*, Japanese, English Studies: Korean, Esperanto | Message 7 of 28 18 December 2010 at 2:07pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
The same can be said about Japanese, even though the Japanese writing system is perceived as one of the - if not the - most difficult ones on this very planet. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| furrykef Senior Member United States furrykef.com/ Joined 6473 days ago 681 posts - 862 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Latin, Italian | Message 8 of 28 18 December 2010 at 4:30pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Strongly disagree. I'm at an intermediate level of Japanese and I would not even think of attempting to read a long text (let alone a novel) in Japanese. Given my experience with other languages, I could probably start studying Modern Greek today and be reading Harry Potter within several months (albeit with difficulty) if I wanted to. I'd be lucky if I could start reading Harry Potter in Japanese in several months, despite having studied Japanese for a couple of years already. Edited by furrykef on 18 December 2010 at 4:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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