Egnlish as Cnihese Crahcaters
Arccodnig to a sutdy mdae by Cmaebirdge Uvinersity, the way in wihch we raed Elgnish is not atcually lteter by lteter, but we look at the sahpe of the wrod, and, as lnog as the frist and lsat lteters are in the rghit pacles, tehn we can raed the wrod - ocne we hvae laenred the wrod, we raed the sahpe, lkie a Cnihese Crahcater.
I know that most native English speakers will be able to read this withoud a problem - it may actually take them a while to realize that this is not normal! I would be interested to know whether non-native speakers of English can read it easily.
I'm a non-native, and I realized you were writing weird at the end of the first line, "raed Elgnish", and I thought it was a typo, then I also noticed "lteter by lteter" and I realized two typos like those one after the other would have been strange... so then I realized you were writing only the first and the last letter correctly. I already knew that "trick", it works in my language too.
So yeah, I can read it easily, as long as I read it mentally and extremely fast. If I slow down, I start noticing the crap in between :-)
Cool, so it works on at least one foreigner - what is your native language?
It took the first clause to get used to, but yes, I could read that at normal pace. Does this work for other languages as well?
Ltnhgey or caeiotpmlcd wdros are seeiommts eaaiiodnlrrrtxy duiiflcft to dieepchr wehn rlpleeesd aiorncdcg to the Crmgdbaie sseytm.
How many native or non-native speakers can easily read the sentence above?
(I may have fouled up some of the reordered words up top.)
It was supposed to be:
[Lengthy or complicated words are sometimes extraordinarily difficult to decipher when respelled according to the Cambridge system.]
<<Does this work for other languages as well? >>
It would be pretty tough to read a polysynthetic language (with 20-syllable words) respelled randomly (for example, alphabetize all letters except the first and last and rewrite the word).
<<How many native or non-native speakers can easily read the sentence above? >>
It's still quite understandable though it takes a little more work.
It takes more concentration, but it is still readable - I think it is harder because the letters are further from their original places in the words.
。懂得看難較比定一，寫左到右從要果如，樣一文中的前以像很就那
I have to press the left arrow every time I want to, what a hassle...
anyway, yes, I say I'm visual just for this reason.
<<Ltnhgey or caeiotpmlcd wdros are seeiommts eaaiiodnlrrrtxy duiiflcft to dieepchr wehn rlpleeesd aiorncdcg to the Crmgdbaie sseytm.>>
That was difficult, I can't read it that way. You separated all vowels from consonants, and you used long words...
So it doesn't always work well, and not for every language, but the main point of that experiment was to prove we don't read letter by letter, but we recognize common words as soon as we see them in a context.
This also work for listening: native speakers are so used to their language that they don't need to hear all the sounds, but they just recognize the entire sentence, or expression, or probable word in a certain context. That allows them to understand very fast speech, songs, different accents, or people speaking quietly. I don't have this ability yet, but I'm improving. But I'm impatient! I want to know everything now! LOL :)
That guest just above at 12:56pm GMT was me :)
Guest - surely English is your native language, if not, I must say well done, you are perfect in English!
One thing the research missed (or maybe I missed) was the effect this jumbling of letters has on prefixes and suffixes, and whether those elements need to be treated like separate words.
The reason I ask is this: When I read this sentence --
"Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae."
--and then read the unjumbled version, I noticed that "rscheearch" was actually 'reasearchER' and not 'research' as my mind had interpreted. So my mind did not pick up on the -er suffix (since this suffix only has 2 letters, no jumbling can occur). Had the word been written as 'rscheacher' I would have caught it.
<<rscheearch>>
I just realized something: the above doesn't reflect the rules for jumbling the words--i.e. first and last letters must be left in place. Accordingly, 'rscheearch' should have remained ending in an 'r'