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When reading, we consume whole words at a time, even in syllabic / phonetic alphabet languages. English is a poor comparison, because it - having consumed voca

When reading, we consume whole words at a time, even in syllabic / phonetic alphabet languages. English is a poor comparison, because it - having consumed vocabulary from many other latin alphabet languages and preserved their spelling, among other historical accidents - does not have a consistent pronunciation rule: you have to know the word to know the pronunciation or otherwise only guess at it, which is similar performance of an ideographic language with pronunciation hints like Chinese. Latin languages with consistent pronunciation are better examples. Hangul though, is a superb example: truly designed system, syllabic and compositional. (other readers: look it up, it's really cool how it works). It's unfortunate you were downvoted over the details here. The big picture - many languages have a large process of rote memorization as a barrier to literacy and such a process is entirely optional - is a great observation.

blackrock 9y ago
I always found the Korean Hangul to be quite fascinating. Although, I must admit, I continue to find the Chinese writing system to be quite beautiful. It's like I'm looking at a strange advanced alien script every time I see it. So, I hope that it never dies. This writing style is a treasure. It is a gift to humanity, to human history, and to human culture. We need to preserve it any way that we can. I hope that one day, an advanced brain-computer-interface technology will allow us to just download a language package into our brains, and we can get instant Chinese comprehension in just 60 seconds. You can get zapped, and go: "I know Chinese." Or rather: "Wo dong zhongwen." [1] Here is some background on written Korean. http://www.businessinsider.com/a-linguist-explains-why-korean-is-the-best-written-language-2016-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/a-linguist-explains-why-korea... [2] Here is an interesting comic to teach Korean in 15 minutes. https://9gag.com/gag/3968335 https://9gag.com/gag/3968335

blackrock 9y ago

I always found the Korean Hangul to be quite fascinating. Although, I must admit, I continue to find the Chinese writing system to be quite beautiful. It's like I'm looking at a strange advanced alien script every time I see it. So, I hope that it never dies. This writing style is a treasure. It is a gift to humanity, to human history, and to human culture. We need to preserve it any way that we can. I hope that one day, an advanced brain-computer-interface technology will allow us to just download a language package into our brains, and we can get instant Chinese comprehension in just 60 seconds. You can get zapped, and go: "I know Chinese." Or rather: "Wo dong zhongwen." [1] Here is some background on written Korean. http://www.businessinsider.com/a-linguist-explains-why-korean-is-the-best-written-language-2016-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/a-linguist-explains-why-korea... [2] Here is an interesting comic to teach Korean in 15 minutes. https://9gag.com/gag/3968335 https://9gag.com/gag/3968335