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Reading: Latin vs Other Alphabets

  Tags: Alphabets | Latin | Reading | Arabic
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
28 messages over 4 pages: 13 4  Next >>
Ester
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64 posts - 114 votes 
Speaks: Modern Hebrew

 
 Message 9 of 28
18 December 2010 at 4:49pm | IP Logged 
I actually do think there is one thing that's inherently more complex in Arabic or Hebrew than in Latin-script languages: the fact that they practically leave out vowels, so at least some of the reading process comes down to "guessing" things out of context, and to do that, you need to have attained a certain level in the language. That's the tricky thing about abjads, as opposed to alphabets - in order to read them in the first place without vowel marks, you need to know quite well the spoken language. Many people who have gone through the process of learning such a language argue for delaying serious attempts at reading lengthy authentic material for the stage at which you're already well-versed in the spoken language.

Still, once you do start reading, it basically comes down to "practice makes perfect". I have been observing my reading speed slowly, but steadily improving in the past year or so in Hebrew, to the point where it's almost as good as in English or other Latin-script languages. It was a lot more difficult to attain that level with the Hebrew script than with the Greek alphabet, because of the "incomplete" nature of the script, but it's not impossible.
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Segata
Triglot
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Germany
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64 posts - 125 votes 
Speaks: German*, Japanese, English
Studies: Korean, Esperanto

 
 Message 10 of 28
18 December 2010 at 5:09pm | IP Logged 
Maybe you should just buy (or download, I won't judge you) the first book and actually try to read something for a change. You might be pleasantly surprised. ;) Of course you can't read a book in a foreign language if you've.. well.. never read a book in a foreign language. The first Japanese book I read was "Kafka on the shore" and even though the first few pages, maybe eben the first 50 or so pages, were more pain than pleasure, I began to pick up speed quite fast. You should be able to do the same, all you need to do is try and not give up. :)
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Andrew C
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United Kingdom
naturalarabic.com
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205 posts - 350 votes 
Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written)

 
 Message 11 of 28
18 December 2010 at 5:30pm | IP Logged 
Just want to add, the Latin alphabet only seems easy because it is so familiar. Adult Arabic speakers trying to learn to read English for the first time find it a real struggle.

Edited by Andrew C on 18 December 2010 at 5:31pm

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ellasevia
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Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian
Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian

 
 Message 12 of 28
18 December 2010 at 8:54pm | IP Logged 
I'd have to agree with others that said that say that the Arabic alphabet is quite tricky. I've studied Persian, which uses a modified form of the Arabic alphabet, since August and still have trouble reading the alphabet. I consistently mix up letters, don't notice letters, and all sorts of other problems. My reading speed has certainly improved since August, but I still can't say it's easy at all. In fact, I'd venture to say that the Perso-Arabic alphabet is my biggest obstacle in learning Persian at the moment. And now that I think of it, I actually knew most of the Arabic alphabet long before I even started learning Persian.

Compare this to the fact that I don't even remember learning Cyrillic at all because it was so simple to assimilate. Even Japanese's kana and, dare I say it, kanji, are easier for me to read.

I hope that all of you who said that it will get easier with time are right, because right now it's just painful trying to read all but the easiest words.
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Hashimi
Senior Member
Oman
Joined 6260 days ago

362 posts - 529 votes 
Speaks: Arabic (Written)*
Studies: English, Japanese

 
 Message 13 of 28
18 December 2010 at 9:08pm | IP Logged 

Actually, if you happen to be bilingual in a Latin-based language and a language using
the Arabic script (or similar script like Mongolian), you will find that reading the
Arabic script is faster than Latin. Many bilinguals told me that. It's just because you
don't read in Arabic frequently.

In general, reading Chinese characters (and its derivatives) is the fastest, then
Arabic, then Latin.

I'm talking about the speed of reading once you master the language, not which script
is easier to learn.


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furrykef
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United States
furrykef.com/
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681 posts - 862 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Latin, Italian

 
 Message 14 of 28
19 December 2010 at 3:19am | IP Logged 
I'd bet that the hardest alphabet to learn (not counting ideographic ones or very horribly contrived ones) would be one that uses the Roman alphabet... only every single letter is completely different. Imagine if "D" were pronounced "A", "Q" were pronounced "B", etc... it'd be a nightmare because our association between Roman script and Germanic/Romance phonemes is firmly entrenched.

I wonder if the Greek alphabet is easier to learn than Cyrillic for this reason, since it shares fewer letterforms.

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Doitsujin
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 Message 15 of 28
19 December 2010 at 9:40am | IP Logged 
ellasevia wrote:
I've studied Persian, which uses a modified form of the Arabic alphabet, since August and still have trouble reading the alphabet.

Maybe it's because the Perso-Arabic alphabet is ill-suited for an Indo-European language like Persian or maybe it's because you mainly read the language instead of writing it. If that's the case, try writing some of the texts that you read multiple times.
Also I find the Persian Nastaʿlīq script harder to read than the Ruqʿa and Naskh scripts used in Arabic. If your textbooks use the Nastaʿlīq script maybe rewriting the texts in Naskh script might help.

Hashimi wrote:
In general, reading Chinese characters (and its derivatives) is the fastest, then Arabic, then Latin.

I believe that while it might appear to you that reading Chinese characters or Arabic words is faster because both writing systems are more information-dense (implied unwritten vowel signs in Arabic, multiple syllables expressed by one Chinese character etc.) the actual reading speed is probably not significantly faster, because the amount of information that can be processed by the human brain in a given time period is limited.
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ellasevia
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Germany
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2150 posts - 3229 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian
Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian

 
 Message 16 of 28
19 December 2010 at 10:09am | IP Logged 
Doitsujin wrote:
ellasevia wrote:
I've studied Persian, which uses a modified form of the Arabic alphabet, since August and still have trouble reading the alphabet.

Maybe it's because the Perso-Arabic alphabet is ill-suited for an Indo-European language like Persian or maybe it's because you mainly read the language instead of writing it. If that's the case, try writing some of the texts that you read multiple times.
Also I find the Persian Nastaʿlīq script harder to read than the Ruqʿa and Naskh scripts used in Arabic. If your textbooks use the Nastaʿlīq script maybe rewriting the texts in Naskh script might help.

I totally agree with you there--the Perso-Arabic alphabet is not well-suited for Persian at all. Sure, it works well enough, but it's cumbersome and just...not right, just as it wouldn't be right to use a romanization to write Chinese. And conversely, I would guess that the Latin alphabet is not well-suited to Arabic.

Everything I use uses what appears to be Naskh, thankfully. I don't know what I would do if it were all in Nastaʿlīq. But maybe I'll try writing more in that case. مرسى for the tip.


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