Reading speed in Chinese

[Olle Linge]

As for my speed in the original post, I actually read all characters and re-read those I misread the first time. I think my speed would have been quite a lot faster if I just read to understand the content rather than to actually read the text. I mean, even if I could read at 1000 wpm in English, I would hardly do so if I read a novel, unless someone forced me to read five a day. Even though I didn't state that very clearly, I meant reading every character, but still trying to do it quickly.

Also, I usually do daily 朗读 which is mainly for pronunciation practice, but after doing so many one can slowly predict how something is going to be written

I haven't thought about this before, but this sounds good. I mean, as long as we don't read twice as fast as we speak, reading aloud forces us to look ahead and try to recognise words quickly enough to figure out how they should be pronounced (including tones and so on). Of course, the tone part is not useful for reading speed in itself, but it does force us to keep ahead of our voices, so to speak, and, just as you say, it makes us able to predict what's going to come next.

Anyone else want to give it a try?

I read the text at around 450 wpm. I'm not a native speaker of English, though, but I've probably read more than the average native speaker.

[lansu]

Curiously, last year at the major universities (I taught at one), there was a huge push for Chinese students to speed read, or at least to read English faster ... I suppose the administration's rationale was, this is one more area where progress could be quantified -- for students and teachers alike ... Newspaper reading was taken as the baseline, 21st Century in particular ... In my China blog (see signature), I read Chinese newspapers and select articles that usually don't make it into mainstream Western media, so I'm not speed reading, but I often wish I could read with greater comprehension faster ...

[cgxy1996]

i read 一目十行, lol

[renzhe]

160 cpm for the Chinese text.

570 wpm for the English text.

Which shows that only reading 水浒传 is not good for reading speed. I guess I'll go back to one newspaper article per day.

EDIT: Tested the missus:

640 cpm for the Chinese text.

220 wpm for the English text.

[medivhsteve]

I'm a native speaker of Chinese and actually I took only about 10s to scan the text in #3.

Yeah, just scan. That's how we read. We don't read word by word unless required, like taking an exam. And even in an exam, I always do this first glance of the whole passage and get to know what it is talking about and then after I read the question, I'll come back to details.

And I think that why I can understand it quickly not just because I'm familiar with Chinese words, but because I'm quite familiar with the topics.

I think it'll be much helpful if you get to know some big events or news in China and that will definately increase the speed of reading about familiar topics. I think the test not only measures how well you know Chinese language but how well you know about China. Language can't be isolated from the country, right?

The same to us Chinese students to take a GRE test. Same feelings of reading those terrible passages.

At last, practice more may added to everything about learning languages.

Hope it'll be helpful.