Another study found the percentage of times a person moves backward in a text-a sign the person is having trouble processing the words-to be about the same for English and Chinese. In one study, both languages were read at approximately the same rate-English at 382 words per minute and Chinese at the equivalent of 386 words per minute. The answer is neither.Įnglish and Chinese are, by and large, read at the same speeds. So which is more quickly read, English or Chinese? Chinese’s high information density could work for it-more complexity could impart more meaning per glance- or against it-each character could require a longer stare to decipher. Still, Chinese words tend to be short on average-only 1.5 characters per word, compared with 5.1 letters per word for English.
While some characters constitute an entire word, others are multiple characters strung together, much like words in English. This has its advantages: proficient readers can decipher both the meaning and pronunciation of an unfamiliar character by deconstructing it. Characters are built by varying the presence and number of strokes and radicals. Radicals are constructed from several strokes, and there are about 200 of them. Strokes are single lines or curves, of which there are about 20. Each character, or hanzi, consists of strokes and radicals. Similar to English words, there are some repeating themes among them. This means someone reading Chinese must dig into the structure of each character to decipher its meaning.Ĭhinese characters aren’t all unique, though. Chinese’s trade-off is its complexity, both in terms of the immense number of characters-tens of thousands according to some dictionaries, though only about 4,600 are commonly used today-and the fact that nearly all of them are more baroque than any letter in the alphabet.
But information density can also work against a reader.
Dazzle hi speed reader zip#
My intuition told me that of two native speakers-one Chinese, one English-the Chinese speaker could zip through an equivalent passage in less time because each character says more. Given Chinese’s compact written form, I wondered how language density affected the speed at which people read. Its complex characters can convey considerable information in a very small amount of space, or where space isn’t a concern, convey that information more boldly. On each sign, there were strikingly few.Ĭompared with English, Chinese is a dense language. Once my mind had adjusted to the mishmash of colors, I noticed the Chinese characters, or rather their number. On my recent trip to Taiwan, I saw billboards and signs for local shops that dripped from buildings with so many hues Benjamin Moore would blush. If there’s one thing that can dazzle my Western eyes, it’s the main drag of any Taiwanese town.
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