Groot
Member
Registered: 2010-03-18
Posts: 157
I'm now starting to write out Japanese sentences longhand, to practice my kana and kanji-writing skills. (I do this in conjunction with the Core 2000 decks I'm using in Anki. And yes, I also practice typing on the computer, using Core 2000's sentence-dictation feature.) I'm getting quicker, but it still takes me a while to hand-write even the simplest sentence. Ironically, the kana sometimes take me longer than the kanji! I've spent so much time with RTK1 that I've neglected to practice my kana, especially my katakana, ugh. I can write some 20-stroke kanji faster than some kana! But in general, my kanji- and kana-writing is on the slow side.
So I'm curious: how fast do native Japanese speakers hand-write? Faster or slower than we English speakers? The "stroke count" of many English sentences seems lower to me, which might imply that we write faster, but then again I'm obviously more accustomed to writing things out in English. And yes, I know that computer-typing is very much the norm these days, but I'm sure plenty of people still hand-write notes and such. Actually, I'd also be curious whether Japanese typists type faster than English typists. Anyone have any thoughts or info on all this?
yudantaiteki wrote:
The necessity of using the IME tends to make Japanese typing slower than English (depending on the quality of the IME, of course), but obviously there's going to be a lot of differences between individual typists.
I'm not sure that's true. Do you have some references for this? How do they compare the languages, re: words vs. characters per minute, and distribution of information in the language?
Japanese is faster. The IME actually speeds it up! People should start typing with an English IME. ;p Plus you can say more with less text in Japanese. You can read it faster, too. ^_^
Last edited by nest0r (2010 May 12, 5:21 pm)
I don't have any references, but logically, having to check every sentence you type to make sure the characters are being converted correctly (and fixing mistakes when they occur), and the hoops you have to jump through to get things that aren't in the IME to display are going to make it generally slower than simply being able to hit keys and have the symbol directly display without any further action. It's true that Japanese usually involves fewer symbols than English but since most people type in romaji anyway, the difference isn't as large since each kana is taking 2 keystrokes.
Last edited by yudantaiteki (2010 May 12, 5:42 pm)
Grinkers wrote:
I can personally type in Japanese almost as fast as English for the same rough meaning, but English is so much more relaxing to type in. For example I'm typing this message while watching TV. If I was typing in Japanese I'd have to be looking at my IME to make word selections and all that.
Also the numerical typing (1-9 on a phone) is so much faster in Japanese than in English.
Pfft, I stand on my head, chew gum, recite pi, listen to music, and watch TV while typing in Japanese, but I can't do that while typing English because I'm always having to make sure I got these extravagant spellings correct, plus I end up subvocalizing more which interferes with my listening. ;p
Last edited by nest0r (2010 May 12, 5:47 pm)
Grinkers wrote:
2 minutes. I'm disappointed in you.
hehe
That's pretty neat about learning to read first, I'd read about some linguists (D./M. Steinberg) talking about this, re: Japanese, in a few papers with regards to their own children and children in some studies they did.
http://books.google.com/books?id=K7XR72 … mp;f=false
http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/Home.p … nfls=false
See also:
http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?id=5703
http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?pid=99559
Bonus: http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?id=5155
I'm pretty well caught up on current trends in linguistics now which is why I'm so laid back with regards to dissing phonocentrism these days, and I'm happy my amateur logic/intuitions/research are being corroborated. It'll be a while before evolutionary linguistics and cross-cultural orthographic studies are combined, though, I imagine. The next Evolang will be in Kyoto, so maybe that'll inspire some researchers. ;p
Forgot to mention there's some interesting studies on Japanese/Chinese numbers being easier to use both in writing and aurally, the former: HBPK (http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?id=4818&p=1) #3 and #4 (at least) and Dehaene's 'The Number Sense' about the phonological loop and working memory capacity. Or something, my interests in those when I read them were only tangential to maths.
http://books.google.com/books?id=CbCDKL … mp;f=false
Last edited by nest0r (2010 May 12, 7:32 pm)
Grinkers
Member
From: Tokyo
Registered: 2009-10-22
Posts: 298
I was a weird kid, and my dad was the same way, so in a way it was "normal". We also found out later that I'm partially deaf too, which probably didn't help. I was able to read a fair bit before grade school, but didn't talk fluently until middle or high school. Even now I use subtitles while watching English movies/tv/etc. It's just way too tiring for my brain to listen only, which I always found interesting because most people think the opposite (listening is easier than reading).
My Japanese skills seem more balanced than my English, probably because I'm training the skills more evenly. I find it so much easier to just read subtitles than to listen, so I never get practice just listening. However in Japanese I do practice it.
I'll have to read more of those links when I get home tonight.
btw, I blame you, nest0r, for this thread going so off track.
Last edited by Grinkers (2010 May 12, 6:17 pm)
What constitutes subvocalization can range from brain signatures associated with auditory-verbal imagery and articulatory-kinesthetic processing, to self-awareness of barely liminal vocal movements, to really overt and deliberate movements just short of speech, to varying degrees of subjective 'loudness'. If you have schizophrenia, you might have serious problems self-monitoring your inner speech and experience AVH (auditory-verbal hallucinations) where you attribute your own inner speech as heard voices. ;p
That and other stuff related to general supramodal, kludgey language/reading requirements and processes depends on script, learning methods, and physiological constraints, as per references and rambles in above-linked threads.
As for writing, I'm pretty fast and natural at it, and my speed/effort isn't much different from my English handwriting, my Japanese writing being a side-effect of using muscle memory to help encode/recall the language. When I write at speed, it's definitely not as neat as my English handwriting (which ironically became more refined at some point while doing RTK) or my slower paced, more focused Japanese writing, though. It looks similar to my English handwriting with my off hand, which feels natural still but which I've fallen out of practice with.
From what I've seen of native handwriting, on average it's no neater than your average English handwriting, with the usual effects of haste.
Of course, girls always have better handwriting. It's from the same genetic trait that makes their cake-icing skills so good.
Last edited by nest0r (2010 May 12, 11:06 pm)
Yonosa
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2009-05-12
Posts: 485
"Of course, girls always have better handwriting. It's from the same genetic trait that makes their cake-icing skills so good."
Not to mention their icing licking skills. Uncalled for? Almost certainly...
And to the post: Idk about japanese people but Chinese people write lightning fast, but it is often highly illegible even to my chinese roommate. In my opinion it is not really like writing characters at all since they skip strokes and just squiggle here and there, and often the kanji can only be recognized in context, even by native. But I do know that when they write characters in a fast and legible way that I am just as fast as they are, so in other words imo, they don't write legibly any faster than someone who has studied kanji and writing diligently everyday for a year does. But then again I want to learn to squiggle to because I want to get my speed up there.
But anyways the people on here who say you will develop a natural handwriting all on your own are outright incorrect, at least in china, because my roommate has shown me quite a few of the handwritten alternatives to some kanji and they are entirely different, stroke counts at times cut in half and more often than not very circular in shape. It is very much a learned skill in itself apart from writing in the standard font.
Groot
Member
Registered: 2010-03-18
Posts: 157
Thanks for all the interesting replies. I tried to find some scholarly studies on the question I raised in the original post, but I'm not a linguist, and I had trouble finding anything reliable using good old Google. In particular, I wonder if any academics have done formal studies comparing languages by hand-writing speed -- and by reading speed.
E.g., do Japanese folks write on average slower than Americans, or do they write just as fast but make more shortcuts like those Yonosa described? Shortcuts would be hard to quantify, though.
I suppose it would also be hard to quantify reading speed. I'm curious whether kanji and hanza speed reading recognition, since in theory they pack more meaning into a smaller space, but I suppose it would be a tough thing to test empirically.
Anyway, thank you again for a series of interesting replies.
