Anon is Illiterate
-
If only everyone recorded personal logs like in Star Trek you could have just bequeathed him those! On a serious note though, good on them for trying to learn and expand their knowledge even with some sort of learning disability. I was diagnosed with ADHD like 30 years ago and I understand how troubling it can be trying to read things while constantly having to re-read sentences because you spaced out, or having to keep 5 browser tabs open because each new section brings up some other topic that I now need. I describe my learning/throught process as a spider web for good reason.
I actually prefer text for the same reason. No need to pause and rewind, then once again forget what I wanted to hear and go back for the 4th time.
I by far prefer text for things that matter.
-
I heard schools have largely moved away from Phonics, which is wild to me. That's basically how reading was taught going back to at least medieval monks.
I hear they're using a "look and see" method or something? Word is that its how the Chinese teach their students to read....but they don't have an alphabet, so I don't know how that's supposed to work in English.
I have a relative who just retired from teaching and she says its a real mess in early education because of how badly this reading teaching method works, and its only worsening as students mature.
Eng Learning TLDR: I was raised with both sight words and phonetics, and realize that my gen was fucked over.
I've heard about the reading wars, but this was the first time I actually thought about it with my education, and I realize why I probably wouldn't read as well if I didn't have parents who actively read with me as a child.
I'm a 2006 baby, so I guess my elementary years were at the perfect time for this little debate to occur. I definitely remember doing sight words and their flashcards, but I swear we still did phonetics (thank god). But like, how would anyone expect a kid to magically learn words by just looking at it 50 times and hearing a teacher say that word? I get that according to this article, a large portion of Eng words can't be read properly first try, but still, I see the value in having a kid connect the sounds of "cat, bat, hat, that," etc. Yes, some homonyms like "to, too, two" are gonna have to be "sight words" but that's unavoidable.
I hated Eng class, not because of sucking at it, but how we never really got free reading time after elementary, and that we were doing lame ass journals and reports on books I didn't want to read. And there were high levels books I did want to read, which is why I loved a banned books project that gave us the freedom to pick a book to do a creative, in any format you want, presentation of the knowledge from the book.
So if I, a person who actually wanted to read and can read well hated Eng class, then people who have learning disabilities, are simply bored, didn't have parents who cared, etc were cooked. I guess that's why my college classmates are so incompetent rn...
Also side note about Chinese (or well, Japanese in my case):
Yeah, CN and JP use hanzi/kanji respectively, which are logograms, but both CN/JP have "alphabets" that can be used to tell you the reading of a word. Chinese uses pinyin (which is actually what most of their keyboards are based on I think), and JP has hiragana/katakana. It's still however more useful to learn the readings for these characters in the context of what you're reading (esp. Japanese, they got their writing system from China but used their own bastardized readings for words, so 生 has like 10+ readings depending on the word it's paired with).
But they still have a neat trick in which kanji have two parts, the phonetic component, and the meaning component. Kanji are made of radicals, which is like using lego blocks to make a single character (i.e. 米 + 青 = 精). The neat part is that you can potentially guess the reading of a word if you already know that phonetic components reading. 青 can be read as "sei", and these kanji 精, 清, 圊, 睛, etc. all have "sei" or a similar version as a potential reading. Now sometimes the radicals don't always make sense meaning wise when added together. 青 is "blue/youth" and 米 is "rice", but 精 means "spirit/ghost", "energy", and uh... "semen" (mostly in the word 精液 "spirit fluid"). Why rice + youth = spirit or ghost, is beyond me, but these kanji usually have interesting stories behind them that could potentially explain their reasoning.
JP Kanji Learning TLDR: JP is fun to learn and kanji have reading patterns based on their components.
-
I had a coworker approach me on break and start telling me about a book he was reading and how much he was enjoying it. Towards the end, he mentioned struggling with it and that he wished someone had told him how great reading was earlier. We were both damn near 30, and it was a YA novel. I resisted the asshole urge to roast him because, shit, at least he's trying?
A while back I read several bad books in a row and decided to try manga for a break. Some of them were good, others weren’t. Then I got frustrated because most of the stuff I was reading wasn’t finished, so I sought out the source material novels that were further along. Ended up finding some really good books that I otherwise would have never knew existed.
Highly recommend the Ascendence of a Bookworm novel.
-
i thought "chapter book" meant a loooong novel being released in book sized chapters one by one like TV show episodes
That’s how Wildbow does it.
-
Doesn't sound like you're any different than oop when it comes to pointlessly hating on something that others enjoy.
Yes, some people enjoy poop. Why don’t you?
-
This post did not contain any content.
No one’s talking about anon’s weird assumption that authors go from idea directly to manga, and not that most authors start by writing a novel to attract a sponsor.
-
I read a lot of science fiction, and a younger friends at work frequently asked me for recommendations, and he liked talking about the books after reading them. At some point I found out that he exclusively consumes them as audiobooks, which is fine and I didn't think much about it. Some years down the line, when I was getting ready to retire, I had to pass on things to him. There was enough of it that, in addition to working elbow-to-elbow with him, I documented all the details in some long emails. When we meet, I'd say "The details are in the email," and focus on explaining the big picture.
It became obvious that he never read the emails. When I talked to him about it, he admitted that he really struggles with any long block of text. The guy is really smart, and he knows a lot about a lot of things, but he gets all his info from audio and video because struggles to consume text. There's clearly some kind of learning/mental issue going on there. It's going to make the job tough for him, but I hope he works it out.
wrote last edited by [email protected]That is so crazy for me on a personal level because I'm the exact opposite. My brain has a really hard time processing auditory instructions.
-
I actually prefer text for the same reason. No need to pause and rewind, then once again forget what I wanted to hear and go back for the 4th time.
I by far prefer text for things that matter.
That's good, when I'm medicated I can sink into a book without as much trouble but typically I need more stimulus to be able to focus. It's a fine line though bc too much stimulus and I'm right back into that zone you described.
-
That is so crazy for me on a personal level because I'm the exact opposite. My brain has a really hard time processing auditory instructions.
Seriously, written guide > > > > > > > video guide
-
No one’s talking about anon’s weird assumption that authors go from idea directly to manga, and not that most authors start by writing a novel to attract a sponsor.
Shhhh, that would require actual understanding of the culture and not just laziness.
-
That is so crazy for me on a personal level because I'm the exact opposite. My brain has a really hard time processing auditory instructions.
This is also a great example of how, even if there are no disabilities involved, everyone has different learning styles. Some people just process information differently.
-
I read a lot of science fiction, and a younger friends at work frequently asked me for recommendations, and he liked talking about the books after reading them. At some point I found out that he exclusively consumes them as audiobooks, which is fine and I didn't think much about it. Some years down the line, when I was getting ready to retire, I had to pass on things to him. There was enough of it that, in addition to working elbow-to-elbow with him, I documented all the details in some long emails. When we meet, I'd say "The details are in the email," and focus on explaining the big picture.
It became obvious that he never read the emails. When I talked to him about it, he admitted that he really struggles with any long block of text. The guy is really smart, and he knows a lot about a lot of things, but he gets all his info from audio and video because struggles to consume text. There's clearly some kind of learning/mental issue going on there. It's going to make the job tough for him, but I hope he works it out.
Something else I forgot to mention was a concept that I learned in the military called BLUF: Bottom Line Up Front. The idea is that most people aren't going to read past the first sentence or two before skipping to the end so you better get the absolutely critical information out right away; before your reader gets bored/decides they have more pressing matters to deal with. I would regularly see emails that started with a summary before even the salutations.
-
I read a lot of science fiction, and a younger friends at work frequently asked me for recommendations, and he liked talking about the books after reading them. At some point I found out that he exclusively consumes them as audiobooks, which is fine and I didn't think much about it. Some years down the line, when I was getting ready to retire, I had to pass on things to him. There was enough of it that, in addition to working elbow-to-elbow with him, I documented all the details in some long emails. When we meet, I'd say "The details are in the email," and focus on explaining the big picture.
It became obvious that he never read the emails. When I talked to him about it, he admitted that he really struggles with any long block of text. The guy is really smart, and he knows a lot about a lot of things, but he gets all his info from audio and video because struggles to consume text. There's clearly some kind of learning/mental issue going on there. It's going to make the job tough for him, but I hope he works it out.
Google Gemini will turn a block of text into a podcast convo to help people with this particular quirk. Have him try it out
-
Google Gemini will turn a block of text into a podcast convo to help people with this particular quirk. Have him try it out
Audio input of information is many factors slower than reading can be. Better to try and fix a reading problem.
-
This post did not contain any content.
Anon has aphantasia
-
Google Gemini will turn a block of text into a podcast convo to help people with this particular quirk. Have him try it out
The text in question would be behind a firewall, but I believe there's a corporate LLM now. I'll suggest it.
-
Something else I forgot to mention was a concept that I learned in the military called BLUF: Bottom Line Up Front. The idea is that most people aren't going to read past the first sentence or two before skipping to the end so you better get the absolutely critical information out right away; before your reader gets bored/decides they have more pressing matters to deal with. I would regularly see emails that started with a summary before even the salutations.
Oh, yes, we use BLUF at work a lot, but it's not really useful if you're trying to pass along detailed knowledge.
-
That is so crazy for me on a personal level because I'm the exact opposite. My brain has a really hard time processing auditory instructions.
I'm good with distilling information in whatever form, but I do get impatient with audio/video sometimes. I can read faster than people talk, so I want the audio to go faster. I've tried upping the playback speed, but we encode a lot of information in the pauses and cadence of speech, and the faster playback screws with the perception of that. Doing that is fine for technical information, but I don't care for it with a novel.
-
The text in question would be behind a firewall, but I believe there's a corporate LLM now. I'll suggest it.
The Gemini podcast is going to condense your text and make it conversational, but it will necessarily lose detail in the process. A better recommendation is the Eleven Labs Reader, it'll just read any text or file you throw at it with top tier voice models. Can use it for free and they have paid plans for more use. They also have a "podcast" generator option like Gemini, but I haven't tried it so can't vouch for the quality.
I use Eleven Labs all the time for things I want to read, like email newsletters, industry publications, etc but never find the time to sit down and read. Now I can have AI read them to me while I walk the dog. Super handy imo
-
I had a friend tell me that she didn't learn to read until she was like eight. Ya never really know where people come from. All of our lives are so different.
I dont think that is considered particularly late here in central europe. Yes, kids should be able to read properly at 6, but a lot of them don't.
