Monday 9 May 2011

CAN YOU READ THIS? WHY?




Here's a new challenge: Try reading the 2 texts below - the first in English and the 2nd in Romanian. Could you understand the message? (Please don't 'translate'it into a normal text, otherwise you will spoil the others' experiences) Just say yes/no.  If yes, why do you think you could make it? Any comments regarding spelling and reading? How important do you think spelling is then?


Olny srmat poelpe can raed tihs. Cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod unersdtadn waht I was raednig. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdring to a rscheearch in Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny ipmotrant tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteers in a word be in the rihgt palce. The rset can be a taotl mses, and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm.

Cnofrom uuni stduiu al ueni uinvresttiai elgenze, nu cntozeaa in ce odrnie se alfa lirteele itnr-un cuvant, signruul lcuru ipmotarnt e ca pirma si utlima lierta sa fie la lcuol lor. Rsetul potae fi o vrzaa colmpeta si tot o vei ptuea ctii fraa prboelme.

39 comments:

  1. Yes,I understand the message,because is important that the first and last letters in a word be in the right place,spelling is very important.

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  2. Iulia,
    then, should I only correct/reject words that have spelling mistakes at the beginning or the end of a word?

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  3. The text is readable even if the spelling is wrong. I think that we should know how to spell words right, but that is not necessary in order to read a text.

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  4. No teacher,you must reject all the words that have spelling mistakes.

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  5. But then we contradict ourselves, it seems that spellin is not so important inside a word...

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  6. I think we can read because reflexes were created.

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  7. Yes i could read it at almost normal speed.I am not sure why i was able to read it,probably got used to seeing a lot of wrongly spelled words on the internet.Spelling is very important,but apparently we can also read words that have the first and last letter in the correct order

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  8. We can read the text without any problem ,because the first and last letter is correct.

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  9. Spelling is very important, yes I could read the text also in English,Roumanian,yes Teacher you have right, no matter how the text is written so, how you manage to decipher what it was Cites written text.

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  10. Yes,we can read the texts without a problem at least i can do this.Spelling is important but if the first and the last latters are in the right place everything it's much easier

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  11. I can read it probably because our subconcious assimilates the words and it recreates them in the back of our minds, it just the first and last letter...

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  12. I don't think it's difficult to read the text even it's only the first and last word correct.Spelling is important,but reading the text was understandable therefore spelling comes as a natural thing.

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  13. I could understand the message! I think I could make it because the first and the last letters in the words were in the right place but spelling is important too.

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  14. Yes, I can read it. First of all you have to know very well the language in which the text is written. You have to know the correct spelling of the words, to understand them. I read a study about this. It's all a game of your mind! Spelling is important in formal documents. I tell you another interesting thing: If you put some incorrectly written words in sentences that have more correct words you will observe first the incorrect ones. That's what teachers do. :) Otherwise you will select the correct ones.

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  15. The text is clear, even if the spelling is wrong. Indeed, being in a hurry, we can make mistakes when we express in writing. We need to correct immediately. Spelling is important. People who are new to learning English can be a little confused when they first read these texts.

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  16. Yes I managed to understand and read the text at normal speed. I think this is an extraordinary ability of human brain

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  17. Yes,I can understand the message, paying little attention anyone can perceive him if they knows English.

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  18. It wasn't difficult to read, it's funny how our mind puts them in the right order without us thinking of it.

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  19. I think that the human brain is so complicated that if the first and last letter are in the right place we can easily read that text.
    And this text can be read without any problem.

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  20. Is difficult, but requires more attention

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  21. The texts can be understood quite easily,because the letters are made ​​so that you can understand.

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  22. Yes.It is very easy to read the texts ,I think because we have years of experience behind and we got used with mistakes like that and also like they wrote in text the first and the last letter from any word in english is important to understand the meaning of it.

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  23. Yes,Liviu, Iulia, Raloo,

    but why then should I bother you to spell words correctly if you still understand them like that?

    Think if spelling is important for example to distinguish between:
    BAD/BED (differ in one letter)
    RIGHT/WRITE (same prounciation, different spelling)
    GOOD/GOD (one extra letter)
    WHICH/WITCH

    Do you know of any such examples which tell us that spelling is important?

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  24. Yes, I know some examples:
    BEAR/BARE
    DEER/DEAR
    NO/KNOW
    PIECE/PEACE
    BLUE/BLEW
    HEAR/HERE.

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  25. Congrats, Szidonia,

    this is one reason why spelling is really important!

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  26. This is really interesting. I would never thought that human brain can do that. Of course, it requies more attention but I can still understand it.

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  27. I could understand both messages. I think this is because we learnt to jump over spelling mistakes knowing that a sentence should make sense and we automatically fill in any blanks. As compared to words that sound the same but are written differently the words in these texts are spelled right to the extent they have all the letters needed but not in the right order.

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  28. Yes I perfectly understood both messages because I had done this test before and I did it right! :D
    I think that they are right, and only the first and last letter of a word matter.

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  29. Yes, I understood the message. I read about this study before,but I didn`t focus on the question “Why is that way? Why could I understand this?” Well,the main reason for everyone who understand is that our mind has the ability to understand a message without being wrote corectly. In my view, even if we can understand incorect words ,spelling is important,because if you wrote a paper at school this way,you probably won`t take a high mark.

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  30. Hello teacher
    Yes i understood the message. It's very important to speak correct. Doesen't matter how it's written because you use that word in a context. Just one example: I'm RIGHT( I'm ok) and another one, Turn to the RIGHT(a new direction)

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  31. Yes, I understand very well. But I don't think you have to be so smart to read or understand this kind of text. It's working with the habit or subconscious of people. Anyway it's an interesting kind of view about the man's brain, a continuous pleasant surprise for every researcher.

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  32. Yes, i understood the message. I have seen something similar in the past.
    If you understand the context of the phrase it doesn't seem to matter the order of the letters in the word but, if the sentence is completely out of the context or if you read only one word, you might not know what that word refers to.

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  33. Yes we can read the text because dosen’t matter in what order letters are, because we got used with mistakes like this and we can understand quickly the meening of the word.

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  34. I understood the message.I think is important to know a language very well with its spelling, with its grammar and the rest comes easy because our mind stores the words and their meaning, and our experiences (in reading or in receiving a message)and, when necessary, use those "storages" to help us gain time in delivering the new message to the brain.

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  35. We can read the text without any problem. This is one feature of the brain. Incomplete information is also able to gain a meaningful words. It is important that the first and last letters to be in the right places.

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  36. Yes, I can read it, because the human mind reads words as a whole, and not letter-by-letter.

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  37. Yes,I also understood the text without problems.In my opinion spelling is very important.When you start learning a forein language....you must to start with the basic informations and of course the meaning of the words because there are words with similar spelling but different meanings and words with the same pronountion but different spelling and meaning.
    I will write some examples to understand me better:)

    -altogheter -this means "completely"
    -all togheter -this describes a group of things or people in one place.

    -effect - verb:bring about,make
    -noun:result
    -affect -have on effect on

    -principle-general truth or standard
    -principal-head of college or school

    WORDS WITH THE SAME PRONOUNCIATION BUT DIFFERENT SPELLING AND MEANING.i MADE A SELECTION ,as there are many of these:

    -allowed-aloud
    -fair-fare
    -hair-hare
    -their-there
    -weather-whether....

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  38. Yes I Can read this.It was very easy to understand what is written in the message because of the experience of practicing but spelling is very important for understanding the main idea of the word.

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  39. It's rather easy to understand the text if you are good at english. For those who aren't tho i think they might have some problems understanding. I got everything that was written there and it wasn't that hard. Focus is the key to success.

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