I heard an interesting radio programme about dyslexia recently. People who suffer from dyslexia have a difficulty with words. They may take a long time to read text, or find it hard to spell words correctly.
The most fascinating part of the programme for me was the story of a bilingual man in Japan. He is the child of two British parents who spoke English at home. So English is his native language. But he went to school in regular Japanese schools, and so he speaks Japanese as a native language too.
The odd thing is that he is dyslexic in English, but not in Japanese. In other words, he has difficulties reading English and spelling English correctly, but can read and write kanji, hiragana and katakana without any difficulties. Despite being a native English speaker, English was one of his worst subjects at school.
According to researchers, this is possible because of the different ways we learn to read English and Japanese. To work out how to read English sentences, we must understand a system of rules and exceptions. The letters, “I, n, t” written together are usually pronounced in the same way, as in, “hint,” “mint,” and “tint.” But the pronunciation changes in the word, “pint.” Kanji is not learned by following a system of rules, but instead by rote memorisation. Children write the character again and again until the pattern of strokes is imprinted on their brain.
So maybe there is an advantage in studying two very different languages, such as Japanese and English. Even if you are not good at one, you might be good at the other.
Vocabulary:
an exception – one unusual case which does not fit into the general pattern or rule
a pint – a unit of measurement; the amount that beer or lager is traditionally served in at a British pub
rote memorisation – learning through repetition
to be imprinted on something – for a mark, pattern etc. to be left on something by pressing or pushing two things together
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