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Old 08-11-2004, 11:43 PM   #1
spin13
Location: Taito-ku, Toyko
Join Date: Jun 2004
Posts: 38
Japan
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Ideograms in English?

I've recently been studying the Japanese language as my second (third, if you count Latin) language and like any alphabet using reader the idea of having to master the Chinese ideograms seems kind of daunting at one point or another. In many ways it seems so foreign, in not only language but in its very nature. However, I recently came across something that I had saved on my computer a while ago and I thought it would be worth sharing. It gives a new perspective to the idea of ideograms, showing that in a few ways, the English language isn't quite as different as one might think; the use of an alphabet isn't so cleanly separated from ideograms. Without furthur ado, I present the following passage:

Quote:
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae.
The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm.
Tihs is bcuseae the huamn barin deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the
wrod as a wlohe.
Fcuknig amzanig huh?
While alphabets still lend themselves to pronunciation of unknown words (well, maybe only loosely in the case of English), this just reminds me that all words are just a series of lines and curves and the brain can be trained to look at them in any number of ways to the point that the orientation and/or order no longer matters, at least compared to a mental reference. I would assume that this ability to recognize the whole also ties into speed reading and stretches into visual puzzles.

Hope you find this as interesting as I did. At the very least it gives hope that one day I can master Japanese and progress from gaijin to henna gaijin .

-Eric
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