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Language and Squiggles
Nov. 15th, 2005 11:40 amOne of the frustrating things about taking a foreign language, especially one that uses a different alphabet, like Arabic, is it's not reflexive. At least not yet.
I look at a page in English, I know there's MEANING there, even if I don't know what until I read it. The effort is as nothing. Look at a page in a foreign language? Even when I know there's meaning there, it doesn't spring out at me. It's just squiggles. And to extract meaning from them requires effort and confusion. And makes me feel like a kindergartener, which is quite frustrating.
I look at a page in English, I know there's MEANING there, even if I don't know what until I read it. The effort is as nothing. Look at a page in a foreign language? Even when I know there's meaning there, it doesn't spring out at me. It's just squiggles. And to extract meaning from them requires effort and confusion. And makes me feel like a kindergartener, which is quite frustrating.
