Learning Chinese with bad eyesight

[girolamo]

Hello everyone,

 

I was previously put off learning Chinese because characters in textbooks are generally too small for me; I can read them but it takes a lot of effort, and since learning Chinese takes lots of effort anyway:

lots of effort + lots of effort = Me not studying

 

Now I'm wondering if there is some good learning tool, an app or something, that might help me sort this problem out, so then I don't have any more excuses not to learn.

 

Thanks!

 

Girolamo

[Hofmann]

First convince us your eyesight is untreatable.

[girolamo]

hehe... should I really? I mean, I think we can agree that if my eyesight as easily treatable, I would treat it for a number of other reasons other than learning chinese, right?

[Michael H]

Magnifying glass? Increase font size on computer?

[li3wei1]

How about reading glasses? With age, I'm finding I have the same problem, and the glasses help.

[Shelley]

Windows 7 has a magnifying glass as part of it accessibility things.

 

I often photocopy my textbook pages and enlarge the copy to 148% to help make it clearer.

 

I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be possible to get round the problem.

 

My prescription is 12 dioptres in each eye, but I manage, in fact the reason I know this is, I just got a new pair of glasses last week with that prescription. They are varifocals and I can now read and see better

 

If you use a computer, tablet or phone for studying then you can always make the font bigger, it works with characters as well as letters.

 

Where there's a will there's a way.

[889]

It's plain insulting to question the OP's medical problem.

And believe it or not there are eye conditions that all the glasses and such in the world can't do much about.

[Shelley]

I don't feel I was insulting the OP, I was genuinely trying to help.

I know what it is like to not being able to see well.

[Hofmann]

OP said it was a lot of effort to see printed characters on a page, and

so then I don't have any more excuses not to learn.

 

There are always excuses not to learn. I don't know OP. Eyesight could be the only thing preventing OP from learning Chinese, or it could be a minor problem in a pile of minor problems. If that's the case, eyesight that bad would result in a lower quality of life all around, e.g. not being able to drive. In such a case, the more pressing matter would be to fix it. But since OP hasn't fixed it, I want to know if it can't be fixed.

 

So I questioned it.

[Meng Lelan]

And believe it or not there are eye conditions that all the glasses and such in the world can't do much about. 

 

 

 

As a professional who works with the deafblind, yes that is correct. Hofmann, maybe you would change your mind if you had congenital rubella syndrome like I do, in which the virus damages the retina and/or lens, or Usher Syndrome, or scotoma, or macular degeneration, or cataracts etc etc. To the OP, it really depends on your vision impairment - whether it's to do with visual acuity, vision field restriction, central vision impairment, etc. There is Zoom Text for reading on the internet and it magnifies up to 500X or so. For books you can use special magnifiers that have a backlight and also can provide contrast (I use yellow text on black background, letters in enlarged font). There are low vision clinics that can help prescribe for a better fit if your eye doctor can make a referral. 

[Hofmann]

OK I was unclear. Sorry. I wanted more information as to what sort of "bad eyesight" OP had.

 

Although there are indeed some people who wouldn't believe that there are untreatable eyesight problems, you'd have a hard time making the case that I'm one of them.

 

What I wanted was something like 

if my eyesight as easily treatable, I would treat it for a number of other reasons other than learning chinese

and now we're (almost) on the same page. Otherwise you get people suggesting magnifying glasses and reading glasses and whatever glasses.

 

Maybe I'd change my mind if I had something like congenital rubella syndrome, where I just refer to it as "bad eyesight" and tell off anyone who wants to know if it's treatable. Or is there something about the culture that I'm missing?

 

Newer textbooks have electronic versions, or .pdf scans of paper books. You can invert the colors of them if you think it will help.

[wulfgar]

 

 

I was previously put off learning Chinese because characters in textbooks are generally too small for me; I can read them but it takes a lot of effort

Are glasses an option? At the age of 50 I finally had to admit that I needed reading glasses. Getting old sucks. I thought I was going to go through life without ever needing them…sigh. If glasses are possible, even if you just need them for Chinese paper texts, they will be worth it. You can try the cheap over the counter type of reading glasses available just about anywhere now, and just use it as a tool for studying chinese.

[girolamo]

Hello again everyone,

 

No offence taken from anyone who re-diverted the post towards my eyesight. I'd say though that this shouldn't be in question, I'm not really asking for help to fix my eyesight, If I was, probably a learning chinese forum would not be my starting point... I have an interesting combination of conditions that makes it so that even with glasses (which I generally wear), I don't see very well. I can still do most things (not driving), but some cost me a certain effort. When I started studying chinese on textbooks, I had to go very close to the book and strain my eye muscles quite a lot to read characters; it was not particularly enjoyable, it slowed me down, and it's the kind of thing that might make my eyesight go poorer still on the long run.

Hence my question in the forum.

 

Now that we have covered that, thanks for all the good suggestions about using accessibility help on the computer.

I was hoping someone would pop out an answer like "Try this great app called Chinese For People With Shit Eyes! It's great! It automatically enlarges characters for you, it's free, and it makes great espresso on the side!"....but maybe I should just look around the forums to see what people think is, in general, the best way to learn chinese on a computer, and then use the accessibility tools to make it work best for me.

 

Thanks again!

 

Girolamo the OP (took me a while to figure out what it means)

[Johnny20270]

I don't feel I was insulting the OP, I was genuinely trying to help.

I know what it is like to not being able to see well.

 

 

 

I don't think was directed at you Shelly

 

what about ebooks etc and zoom right it? Is that an option?

 

Else a scanner and read online. You can get very small hand help scanners now

[Shelley]

If you use a computer to learn you do have all the advantages of zoom, enlarging and changing colour combinations. I have just started an edX course that is entirely on line. There are written texts but as they are PDFs you can make it larger. I have started a blog about it, have a read it may be a good start for you.

 

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/blog/108-my-chinese-learning-blog/

 

Hope this helps.

[Meng Lelan]

My deafblind clients say the same thing too, the eye and neck strain. You may want to consider book stands that position the book at your desired reading position or trying out larger fonts. I struggled with 22 point font then finally went for 72 pt font with yellow text on black background. But everyone is different. You might want to ask a low vision clinic to demonstrate a CCTV for you. They used to be huge and bulky but now they have portable smaller versions. 

[querido]

To girolamo:

From the Glossika website: "...writing systems have nothing to do with achieving fluency in a foreign language! (We'll discuss the many reasons why you should avoid learning foreign scripts at the beginning in a future article)."

 

Let's not argue it again; in the absence of proof why not get started with a method that sidesteps much of the stated additional difficulty?

 

You could "make a virtue of necessity" and take a chance with the above viewpoint - which might turn out to be ideal anyway - and maybe learn reading and writing later.

[yifeng]

Hi girolamo, Smart Chinese Reader 1.9 may meet your need, it allows you to enlarge font sizes to 150%, 200%. See the post http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/47817-ask-for-suggestions-on-a-free-chinese-reading-software/ for details.