Quote:
Originally Posted by CivicBlues
ANd honestly limiting your travel to places with the same "Alphabet" can be misleading.
Consider happening upon this sign in Turkey, a country that uses a Romanized script.
vs. Japan, which LOVES to use pictograms and cute illustrations everywhere
I don't know about you, but I have no idea how to read Turkish or Japanese, but I can clearly understand the latter sign better. |
That's not really an apples to apples comparison, though.
If the Turkish sign had a pictogram, you could understand it just as well. With no pictogram, the Japanese sign is even less intelligible to me than the Turkish one is. If those are very common words you often see on signs, after a week or so in Turkey I'd be able to start to pick some of them up. Not so with Japanese.
If I am looking to get off a train, and the sign says "ISTANBUL", I can read it.
If I have an address or am trying to orient myself with a map or GPS, if I see Istiklal Caddesi it means something to me that I can use as a point of reference. Even if I might not know what the street name means exactly (Avenue of the Lovely Flowers? Boulevard of the Glory of the Nation? I have no idea.)