Quote:
Originally Posted by Nyororin
To point out the difference and problems with becoming accustomed to horizontal vs. vertical - try writing something of significant length, in English, vertically.
Just do it.
|
I still don't see it (no pun intended). Just like any new skill you acquire, if you learn to do it the right way in the beginning, it shouldn't be difficult within your limits. You are right, English does look strange vertically. However, that's because I've been seeing English written differently for over 20 years. When I started learning Japanese, however, I had no association of any kind with the language, so it was kind of "it is what it is." The same way we acquire kanji. Kanji has no similarity to the English language, but countless people have learned to read and write kanji well into adulthood beyond what they should be "used to seeing." Basically, for non native learners, Japanese should be a completely new concept so one should not be able to "see" whether Japanese is difficult or whatnot depending on the way it's written vertically or horizontally.
English may be written horizontally, but I feel that being able to flick from left to write has less to do with it than what you think. If I write a sentence like:
"i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!"
You should be able to read that fluently with no effort. Not because it goes left to right, but because our language has associative patterns to the words themselves. That's what I think..