I've separated this discussion out of another thread...

We make jokes about people who "move their lips while they read." We don't realize that Plato and Cicero surely read that way, and perhaps even Shakespeare and Cervantes.

I'm curious about the rest of you, but... When I read to myself, my brain does not convert the written words directly into meaning. It converts them into spoken words, which it then runs silently through my speech center.

When writing was first invented, what few accounts we have of the new technology indicate that people could only read written language by reciting it aloud. Even if they were not reading to others, they had to "read" to themselves. The written symbols had to be converted to aural symbols before they could be interpreted. Eventually they became able to read silently, but their mouths were still moving, a sign that the speech center was still in use.

Remember that before the invention of the printing press and the spread of education to very young children, most people probably learned to read at a relatively late age. At an earlier age we seem to be able to bypass the speech apparatus and connect written words directly to the speech center without moving our lips.

Speaking from experience, I think there's a threshold in there. I find that when I read languages that use a more or less unmodified Latin alphabet, even languages I don't know well, the sounds manifest silently in my brain, like English. But languages using alphabets I learned as a teenager or adult don't work the same way. I often notice myself muttering when I confront Yiddish, which uses the Hebrew alphabet, even though the spoken language is not quite so much of a struggle for me. Even more so for Russian and its Cyrillic alphabet, which I don't speak at all well. Even Czech and Polish, with their Latin alphabets augmented by a bewildering array of diacritical marks, sometimes coax me into reading aloud. I did not study any of those writing systems until I was about 15.

Oddly, I read Chinese silently, even though I'm a beginner with kanji and didn't start to learn it until I was 26. Perhaps the completely unphonetic system breaks the link in my brain.

I'm curious if everyone reads like I do, with spoken words forming in their brains.

This discussion was kicked off by wondering whether anyone has learned to read Hebrew without bothering to get the vowels, which are not quite phonemic, usually have no impact on the meaning, and are not printed except in student or liturgical material. Or Chinese. I'm sure somebody out there has puzzled his way through the language without bothering to study the rather difficult phonetics.

Are people reading languages with no obvious phonetic equivalents in a different way than we read our native languages? Without forming sounds? Direct from written symbol to meaning? That would be fascinating.

I just read, no sounds or lip movements or anything.

I just read, no sounds or lip movements or anything.Can you describe the cognitive process? Do you sense the words as "words" or as units of meaning?

I suppose a good test would be to compare the way you read prose to the way you read poetry--at least traditional poetry rather than so-called "blank verse." Do you sense the meter and rhyme in poetry? Does your brain have to switch into a different mode than it's accustomed to in order to do that?

Do you notice puns when you read, or only when spoken aloud?

I read too fast to form the sounds in my head.
I only "pronounce" the word in my thoughts if it's, say, a brand new-to-me one or an obscure name for a character in a novel.

Just caught your second post:
yes, I change my reading pattern for poetry, as I try to get the rhyme, scansion, meter and everything else. Poetry I do "read out loud" in my head.

Can you describe the cognitive process? Do you sense the words as "words" or as units of meaning?

I suppose a good test would be to compare the way you read prose to the way you read poetry--at least traditional poetry rather than so-called "blank verse." Do you sense the meter and rhyme in poetry? Does your brain have to switch into a different mode than it's accustomed to in order to do that?

Do you notice puns when you read, or only when spoken aloud?

I find it jarring if words are asynchronous or not metered in poetry, unless the sentiments are exceptionally well expressed. In prose, I absorb the words rather than read them, I don't have to read each and every word to understand what the sentiment is, but I am sensitive to the way that sentences are framed and words are used. No I don't read poetry or prose "out loud" though I read poetry more closely.

I thought it was like that for everyone.:p

edit: I have to say, a well constructed phrase or pun or poem gives me a distinct physical thrill.

This discussion was kicked off by wondering whether anyone has learned to read Hebrew without bothering to get the vowels, which are not quite phonemic, usually have no impact on the meaning, and are not printed except in student or liturgical material. Or Chinese. I'm sure somebody out there has puzzled his way through the language without bothering to study the rather difficult phonetics.

man, i missed the hebrew thread!
i taught myself biblical hebrew with about 20 different books designed to teach a lone individual how to read the torah. it wasnt as difficult as you might think..certainly easier for me to learn than flemish (2 years of study, and i still struggle with bending my tongue correctly).

i found that the absolute distance hebrew has from my native english was actually an asset. i didnt have familiar patterns to fall back on to be lazy with :D
i dont move my lips when reading it, however.
can anyone else here read in hebrew?

I read too fast to form the sounds in my head.
I only "pronounce" the word in my thoughts if it's, say, a brand new-to-me one or an obscure name for a character in a novel.

Just caught your second post:
yes, I change my reading pattern for poetry, as I try to get the rhyme, scansion, meter and everything else. Poetry I do "read out loud" in my head.

I have to read your posts outloud and i can't pronounce or understand half the words.:shrug:

Do you read them with an English accent though?

Do you read them with an English accent though?

no canadian

There you are then. That's the root of the problem.

However, to answer more of Fraggles' question:

after thinking about it more:

French I read as I would English - I just absorb it. As with Italian (the bit I do understand), and the few bits of Arabic I know I'm learning to take in immediately, but Russian is mostly read "out loud" in my head (probably due to lack of practice and the bloody stupid shape of the words (I read somewhere that practised readers of English recognise words by their shape rather than break them down into letter-by-letter sequences), but odd words are taken in as a unit.

If you have a link or reference showing that the likes of Plato or other ancients couldn't recognize written words unless they were spoken aloud, I'd be very interested to see it. Frankly, I'm more than a little skeptical that I have a power that Plato and Cicero lacked. (As I have no inclination to mouthing words as I read or write them.)

The first written languages are so old that we surely do not have descriptions of how readily they were adopted...that was not the sort of thing the Egyptians/mesopotamian/Chinese (depending on which you believe came first) would have written down or that would have been likely to survive had it been written down. Even within particular cultures at issue, writing wasn't new to the Greeks when Plato started writing, nor new to the Romans when Cicero wrote. From their individual perspectives, writing was a common skill for people in their (privileged) positions.

I do agree that we all process language in similar ways, and "sounding out" words in alphabetic languages is a common way to teach reading because spoken language is so much more intuitive than reading. Much as many people (in the U.S. at least) learn the alphabet as small children by singing the "Alphabet Song (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabet_song)" though, at some point one is expected to outgrow that mental crutch, just as they are with "sounding out" words aloud.

I don't think that the failure to lose that mental crutch is a sure sign of a lack of intelligence, but it could in certain circumstances be evidence of some stunting in an individual's education and general literacy.

There should be some brain wave studies on line somewhere, in which IIRC even very fast reading activates the speech and physical vocalization areas of the brain - as well as the auditory.

Found a couple:

http://hendrix.ei.dtu.dk/services/jerne/brede/WOEXP_398.html

http://www.magicspeedreading.com/subvocalization/index.html
Sound associations for words are indelibly imprinted on the nervous systems, even of deaf people, as they will have associated the word with the mechanism for causing the sound. Subvocalizing is an inherent part of reading and understanding a word, and micro-muscle tests suggest that subvocalizing is impossible to eliminate. Attempting to stop subvocalizing is potentially harmful to comprehension, learning and memory.

There should be some brain wave studies on line somewhere, in which IIRC even very fast reading activates the speech and physical vocalization areas of the brain - as well as the auditory.

Surely the faster you read the less likely you are to "vocalise" since vocalisation would be relatively slow.

My reading speed is up around 600-650 wpm and a good speaker is apparently 125-175 wpm (rapidly Googled for ballpark figures).

So how do I "keep up" if I vocalise?

Well, there are two ways that I read, yet neither of them involve moving my lips or mouth. The first is just when I'm skimming or trying to read something quickly: I just glance at the sentence and I can recognize shape of the words in chunks (usually half a line in a book). The second is when I actually try to read something in depth, I just say the sentence to myself, in my head, with no movement of my mouth.

I think I've been reading since I was 6 or 7, though my mom definitely had books and stuff in front of me probably since I was 4. As long as I can remember, anyway. Reading, most the time, is visual. Sure, it triggers the speech center in the brain every now and then, but mostly it's interpretation from symbol to significance. I see words. If I read something, I can often remember exactly where in a book I read it. Not necessarily the page number, but it's location- middle right, upper left, etc. When I recall the phrase, I also recall it's position.

Sometimes language comes to me toally visually. I see the shapes of words, the way they're stringed together, and I understand the meaning without having to subvocalize. When I'm reading jargon, techincal stuff, math, science, etc., I have to slow down and vocalize, pondering each word in my head.

When I write, sometimes I vocalize. Sometimes I don't; the words come in bursts, strings, a flow, more like music than something verbal. Other times, I struggle to convey a thought. I search for a word, sounding them out in my head, playing my incomplete sentence back like audiotape, to see if the new word fits, if it means what I mean.

When reading Spanish sometimes I just see the word and know it. Most the time it has to run through translation centers, though, and requires extensive processing. I find reading spanish extremely exhausting, because I have to run all the words through speech centers and translation, and then put sentences, paragraphs, and thoughts back together, piecemeal.

Usually I mentally hear what I'm reading. If I try doing it purely visually, the concepts tend to jumble out of order and make me dizzy.

Roman, you say that when you write you don't always vocalise, but you mention music. Music, like speech, is a linear form of thought unlike pictures which are parallel (and faster). Do you think this musical form of thought has anything to do with the way you read?

My writing is a mixture of sound and visual - I think I type based on sound (as if I'm speaking to someone) but I definitely spellcheck visually. I can easily type 'their' instead of 'there' without noticing, and just as easily see the mistake afterwards.

Even though I don't move my lips or do anything close to that, I think I read through the center that senses sound because i can almost "hear" what am reading. May be sometimes I read directly converting string of letters into meaning, but when I concentrate to see what is happening, it becomes difficult to tell what is happening. When i see mathematical formula I certainly convert them into meaning without reading like "eks equal to square root of alpha".

Have not read any of thread, but want to point out that reading without moving your eyes (only possible with words sequencially displayed on screen where you are "fixating") is at least an order of magnitude faster than normal reading. (This eliminates the saccades between fixations of normal reading, which take up most of the time.) The upper limit of reading rate with full comprehension of one subject tested was too high to be measured. (One high speed monitor display frame, then one blank frame, then next word (or several if image still in fovea) etc. was not fast enough to cause decrease in comprehension). Brain is not limiting your reading speed.

You're referring to Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Serial_Visual_Presentation)?

You're referring to Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Serial_Visual_Presentation)?Yes, exactly, but I rarely visit wiki. I have a paper or two on RSVP somewhere in the meter tall stack of Xeroxes I brought to Brazil 15 years ago*. The work I mentioned I am almost sure was done at Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Clinic - I had some contact with them, but more with the neurosurgery department, while working at JHU/ Applied Physics Lab.
-------------------------
*Until visit to your wiki link, I did not realize RSVP now has some commercial interest.

So how do I "keep up" if I vocalise? Only the actual sound production is slow; the mental preliminaries, which are what is involved here, are as fast as any other mental event - including comprehension of read words.

You "hear" sounds in your head that have not been physically generated in the outer world, true? You mentally generated those sounds, at the speed of thought. Your brain can generate sounds faster than you can read.

Only the actual sound production is slow; the mental preliminaries, which are what is involved here, ...How is this known? or are you guessing?

It seems false to me, because if it were true, than I should be able to silently "hear" myself speak several hundred words per minute. (more than 50 times my normal vocalization speed.) I tried but was not even able to double the rate.

Too few people separate their opinions from facts. I know a lot of facts, yet most of my posts include: (I think)

Certainly easier for me to learn than Flemish (2 years of study, and I still struggle with bending my tongue correctly).Wow. All of the linguistic articles I've read insist that Flemish satifies the defintion of a "dialect" of Dutch--that the two are mutually comprehensible, instantly for many people. Were you not able to understand spoken Flemish before you started studying it? We're told that the reason Flemish is sometimes called a separate language is strictly politics, to bring more attention to the Flemish separatist movement in Belgium. I'm assuming you're fluent in Dutch, from your other posts.I read somewhere that practised readers of English recognise words by their shape rather than break them down into letter-by-letter sequences.Somewhere on SciForums is posted the experiment on this topic. I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. We are able to read words with the correct first and last letter; all the ones in between can be scrambled as long as they are present and correct.Surely the faster you read the less likely you are to "vocalise" since vocalisation would be relatively slow. My reading speed is up around 600-650 wpm and a good speaker is apparently 125-175 wpm (rapidly Googled for ballpark figures). So how do I "keep up" if I vocalise?Our speech center is much faster than our vocal apparatus. I've read that people have no trouble understanding recorded English played back with digital equipment at 250wpm, with the correct pitch and the phoneme durations individually adjusted so that all can be heard. I don't know what the upper limit is.Well, there are two ways that I read, yet neither of them involve moving my lips or mouth.Well my whole point was that we no longer move our mouths. The question is whether we process the words through our vocal center, silently.I find reading Spanish extremely exhausting, because I have to run all the words through speech centers and translation, and then put sentences, paragraphs, and thoughts back together, piecemeal.I'm guessing you learned Spanish when you were an adult or older adolescent? I had my first class when I was 11 and I read it the same way I read English and at the same speed. I suppose I'm fluent in Spanish by my own rating system, at least 7.5 with a vocabulary of at least 6,000 words. And I'm fluent by the only other rigorous definition I've seen: I know I think in Spanish because I have dreamed in Spanish.

The cornerstone of my thesis was that people who learn a writing system at too advanced of an age may have lost the ability to read words without first translating them into sounds. This is my proposed explanation for why people in earlier eras, before education in childhood was widespread, had to read aloud or at least silently to themselves.Only the actual sound production is slow; the mental preliminaries, which are what is involved here, are as fast as any other mental event - including comprehension of read words. You "hear" sounds in your head that have not been physically generated in the outer world, true? You mentally generated those sounds, at the speed of thought. Your brain can generate sounds faster than you can read.Yes, but I would think that completely bypassing the speech center and having some other method of reading could have an effect on the way we understand and react to the sentences. I'd like to explore this with the people who have said they don't form sound images mentally. I just have no idea what questions to ask. :(

Yes, but I would think that completely bypassing the speech center and having some other method of reading could have an effect on the way we understand and react to the sentences. I'd like to explore this with the people who have said they don't form sound images mentally. I just have no idea what questions to ask. :(

Why do you think we need to use the speech center in order to read? I use the speech center to write, because I can "hear" the words as I write them, however, when I am reading, it is a completely different process.

Why do you think we need to use the speech center in order to read? I use the speech center to write, because I can "hear" the words as I write them, however, when I am reading, it is a completely different process.I'm not exactly saying that we "need" it. You've proven that we don't, since at least some portion of the human race is apparently perfectly capable of reading without it. I'm only saying it's also apparent that a great many of us "use" it and can't conceive of a way to read without it.

When I see a written text, the sound of someone speaking those words simply pops into my head unbidden. Whether it's a book I'm reading, a billboard that zooms by while I'm driving, the slogan on somebody's t-shirt, or a shred of newspaper lying upside down on the sidewalk that my eye happens to glance at... the spoken words form in my head instantly, without my control. I can't make it stop and until rather recently it never even occurred to me that I might want it to.

What I can't imagine is how I would read without this. If I saw a group of letters forming a word, and the spoken word did not pop into my mind, I don't understand what method I would use to determine the meaning of the word, much less the sentence.

All of my thoughts are in spoken words, unless I'm composing or rehearsing music. I suppose I can look at a sunrise and get a basic sense of "pretty" or "morning," and if my shoelace is untied I can probably retie it without describing the process step by step. But if there's a bunny-rabbit outside the fence standing quietly and my dog is inside the fence facing the other way, not seeing him, and there's the potential of a humorous situation when he eventually turns around and realizes there's a bunny over there... well that sentence I just typed is running through my head, in spoken English. Although without the editing and proofreading. :)

When writing was first invented, what few accounts we have of the new technology indicate that people could only read written language by reciting it aloud. Even if they were not reading to others, they had to "read" to themselves. The written symbols had to be converted to aural symbols before they could be interpreted. Eventually they became able to read silently, but their mouths were still moving, a sign that the speech center was still in use.

What makes you say this?
What accounts are you talking about, and if there are only a few what makes you assume that this was true for everyone?

When I was studying English, I was a lazy learner. I learned words from literature, memorized how they looked, but didn't bother figuring out how those words would be pronounced. My first language is Russian, I then learned Hebrew and Latvian; in these languages, there are few or no silent letters, letters are mostly pronounced the way they are in the alphabet, there are none or very few two- or three-letter combinations to make single sounds, so reading is easy. It took me a lot longer to learn how to pronounce the English words I would see correctly. However, I easily remembered how to spell words (I have a very good visual memory). As a result, there are still many words in English language which I know how to write but don't even try to pronounce. Same with French: I won't twist my tongue to say Courvoisier, but I'll write it correctly each time. In my mind, when I read Courvoisier, I don't bother with pronouncing it; I simply recognize it. As a result, my speech differs drastically from my writing in vocabulary.

Yes, writing is a completely different process. When I become very concentrated on reading, I no longer pronounce but merely recognize words. When I am very concentrated on an activity, I don't hear surrounding sounds. I don't know whether it speeds me up or slows me down, I have never measured my reading speed. My mind always pronounces as I write (except the words I don't know how to pronounce; I simply pull them out of my memory whenever the need arises). However, I write slower than I speak, so pronouncing doesn't slow me down; on the contrary, it speeds me up and makes my writing more effective.

I read since I was 1 year and 7 months old, and I always vocalize the words in my head, both in my native tongue and in other languages as well.
If I don't do that it feels as if I have read the information, but it hasn't set in my mind, I can't make sense of it, put it in context.
I don't ever move my lips.

How is this known? or are you guessing? Check out my links, that I included with that post, for two sources.

Yes, but I would think that completely bypassing the speech center and having some other method of reading could have an effect on the way we understand and react to the sentences. I'd like to explore this with the people who have said they don't form sound images mentally. I would guess the only place you could find a set of people who reliably read without activating the sound processing areas of their brains would be among the congenitally deaf. As far as speakers claiming they don't - I read very fast, and could easily overlook the aural/oral registration symbiosis that accompanies my reading of a word if I were not deliberately and with difficulty aware that a set of rhyming or doggerel syllables will stand out if present, that consonants with similar vocal production mechanisms will more often pass unnoticed in typos than consonants with much different ones, that even very bad misspellings are often easily read (the sound registers, rather than the visual image), that for me tongue twisters are harder to read than more easily pronounced prose, etc.

If you have a link or reference showing that the likes of Plato or other ancients couldn't recognize written words unless they were spoken aloud, I'd be very interested to see it.What makes you say this? What accounts are you talking about, and if there are only a few what makes you assume that this was true for everyone?Well naturally I can't find my source and will have to keep looking.Frankly, I'm more than a little skeptical that I have a power that Plato and Cicero lacked. (As I have no inclination to mouthing words as I read or write them.)I shouldn't malign Plato and Cicero. My own hypothesis is that by learning to read when we were all six years old (or five for you kids who all had mandatory kindergarten, we got an extra year of carefree childhood instead :)) we were able to develop a cognitive skill that people who learn later in life simply cannot. After all, all learning abilities related to language tend to drop off markedly in late adolescence for most people--that's why we scream at American parents to enroll their children in foreign language classes so when the Chinese take over the world economy they'll have an easier time with Chinese.

Children were not barraged with education in ancient times. However, Plato and Cicero (I actually know nothing of their personal lives) may have been exceptions who were taught literacy in early childhood and therefore read like we do.The first written languages are so old that we surely do not have descriptions of how readily they were adopted...that was not the sort of thing the Egyptians/mesopotamian/Chinese (depending on which you believe came first) would have written down or that would have been likely to survive had it been written down.I seem to recall that the references were oblique. For example, an abbot could tell whether his monks were doing their work and reading, because if they were daydreaming their lips would not be moving. I'll keep looking.I don't think that the failure to lose that mental crutch is a sure sign of a lack of intelligence, but it could in certain circumstances be evidence of some stunting in an individual's education and general literacy.I didn't mean to imply that I regard people who don't subvocalize as more intelligent than the rest of us. (Perish the thought!) Simply that they may respond to what they read differently from the rest of us because the way they read is different.

If you have a link or reference showing that the likes of Plato or other ancients couldn't recognize written words unless they were spoken aloud, I'd be very interested to see it. I read once that Gaius Marius used to speak out loud as he read while Gaius Julius Caesar read quickly in his head.

Also, didn't the ancient Greeks initially write both from left to right as well as from right to left?


Fraggle Rocker,

How are you going with the kanji? Are you learning Chinese or Japanese? Self taught or schooled?

Michael


Oh yeah, I read English in my mind. Japanese I read words I recognize quickly in my mind and the kanji I read mentally - but words I do not know that are written in hiragana I try to sound out loud.

Also, didn't the ancient Greeks initially write both from left to right as well as from right to left?I think I read that somewhere too. You can still find Chinese written both ways, as well as top to bottom. Direction wasn't always as important as it is in the age of printing and computers. As someone pointed out on another thread, it's more important to the writer than to the reader, having to do with the particular writing tool as well as right- or left-handedness. I find it trivial to read mirror images, and I'm sure most of us who work in offices have long ago developed the ability to read upside down from the papers on our boss's desks. Now I'm not sure I could do it so easily in Spanish, and I can't really do it at all in a non-Roman alphabet.How are you going with the kanji? Are you learning Chinese or Japanese? Self taught or schooled?I'm not actively learning han zi, which tells you which language I studied. :) I took a class in Mandarin almost forty years ago, and we learned a few characters but the emphasis was on conversation. Since then I've hung out with a lot of Chinese people (easy to do in L.A., even in those days), learned more words and became fluent in what I know. I had a girlfriend from Sichuan for a couple of years and I got her to speak Chinese around the house to help me, whenever practical. So I tend to speak with a Sichuan accent, or Shicuan as they say. I rate myself in the low 6's on my scale. I can probably write a few dozen characters and read a hundred or two, not really enough to even figure out what a store sells from its sign. I'm too old to bother learning more now. The Chinese will adopt a phonetic writing system before I learn to read the bare minimum 1,200 of what they've got. :)The kanji I read mentally.I suspected that a foreigner might learn to read kanji without even knowing how the words are pronounced. Same for Hebrew without the vowels.

I enjoy studying the Chinese characters - I can write about 1000 kanji. But I don't study their pronunciation only their stroke order and English meaning. It's kind of fun to read a sign in China Town and have an idea about what's inside the store or on the menu.

:)

As tot he moving lips I wonder if people who read while moving their lips type while moving their lips?

I enjoy studying the Chinese characters - I can write about 1000 kanji.If I remember what I read in a recent article correctly, that would almost qualify you as "literate" in China. I think people with four years of elementary school are assumed to know 1,200 characters, and that's the standard they use for their national literacy statistics. That way they get to count millions of people in rural areas who had four years of school but don't keep in practice so they are now in fact illiterate. That's the advantage of an alphabet, you only have to remember a couple of dozen characters. I wonder whether anyone has ever lost the ability to read English or any language with a phonetic alphabet, simply from lack of practice.As to the moving lips, I wonder if people who read while moving their lips type while moving their lips?I wonder if anybody who moves his lips while he reads ever learned to type. :)

Uh oh, I probably just set us up for a scroll of "blonde jokes." :)

Uh oh, I probably just set us up for a scroll of "blonde jokes." :)

Q: Why was the blondes' belly button sore ?
A: Because her boyfriend was blonde too.

:p


I use a couple books to study the Characters but this is the main method I use. It's taken about 18 months to get to 1000 and my goal is 2050. After I make some flash cards I only study them during breaky and then again between sets at the gym :) Heisig's is the best method for learning the meaning for sure.


Remembering the Kanji I (http://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Kanji-Complete-Japanese-Characters/dp/4889960759)

But I don't study their pronunciation only their stroke order and English meaning.
So do you mentally hear the English words while reading them?

I wonder whether anyone has ever lost the ability to read English or any language with a phonetic alphabet, simply from lack of practice.
I learned to read Greek a while ago but know virtually no vocabulary. I think I can still read it phonetically (slowly) but I've forgotten the few exceptions to phonetic pronunciation. They might take a few minutes to relearn.

I learned to read Greek a while ago but know virtually no vocabulary. I think I can still read it phonetically (slowly) but I've forgotten the few exceptions to phonetic pronunciation. They might take a few minutes to relearn.Sure. I only run across something in the Hebrew alphabet every few years but I can still decipher it. One girl I ran into on the sidewalk looked at me askance when she saw me staring at her t-shirt. But then when she noticed my lips moving she smiled and stood still, while I puzzled out "University of Jerusalem" and filled in the missing vowels.

I'm a little better with Cyrillic but still it helps if the words aren't moving. Considerably more adept with the Greek alphabet, I guess I learned that one when I was around thirteen. I don't exactly have a vocabulary but it's amazing how much Greek we all know from borrowed words in English. When I was in Thessaloniki, standing in front of a building whose sign read Hellenikos Ethnikos Trapezion, I got a chuckle when I quickly realized it was the Greek National Bank.

So do you mentally hear the English words while reading them?yes, unless I know the Japanese word then I would mentally hear the Japanese word and somewhere else the meaning (for example "white car") would be simultaneously occurring.

Or so it seems....