Quote:
Originally Posted by John F
So you are saying that it is easier to have a conversation by faxing then by emailing for countries that don't have an alphabetic script?
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I don't know for sure, but handwriting sounds much faster.
See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_input_method
And Japan uses many Chinese characters:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chines..._for_computers
Quote:
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In Japan, faxes are still used extensively as of September 2020 for cultural and graphemic reasons.[31][32][33][34] They are available for sending to both domestic and international recipients from over 81% of all convenience stores nationwide.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fax#In_the_21st_century
Extensively used in UK NHS rather than email. I don't know why.
I last used Fax about 8 or 10 years ago to the Irish Tax office, except I didn't. My microwave linked VOIP shared with Internet is 64K codec on an 8Mbps down/1 Mbps up duplex link, so a modem works on it. Most VOIP won't support a modem. So I dug out some old XP fax software and used an old laptop with a modem and managed to send them a fax. They seem to understand email now.
Oh, and China has a main standard written language, but it's not phonetic at all. There are hundreds of spoken languages in China that use this. So you will see people in railway ticket offices using those dumb erasable LCD pads or paper and writing to each other as if deaf and dumb. They can't talk to people from different regions at all, but writing works.
Japan doesn't have that problem.
We don't really read the letters. They are handy to type or write. But once you are proficient at reading you recognise entire words, it makes proof reading need practice because many errors will be invisible if the start and end of a word is recognised. Yu cn vn mnge wtht mst f th vwls. Hence Hebrew and Arabic are not so hard, though the alphabets are not absolutely vowel free.
So learning to read Chinese books fluently for a Chinese kid isn't really any different to learning to read fluently in the West. I don't know how reading out loud works.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_Chinese