Language and Squiggles
Nov. 15th, 2005 11:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
forsythOne 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.
