It makes no sense to me at all that when I've learnt a language here at UNSW (so far only Japanese & Korean) that one of the first things they teach you is that languages written characters, often quickly discarding romanisations altogether in favour of that languages writing system.
The reason this doesn't make sense to me is that it seems to me that the best way to learn any new language was the same way you learnt the one you originally spoke - vocabulary & grammar first, then reading & writing as a distant second.
When you try to learn the written characters first, it becomes difficult because your mind doesn't have a concept to relate the "strange symbol" to, making them easier to forget.
If you learn the spoken words first, and thereby the sounds, by the time you've acquired a large enough vocabulary, and started to learn to write the characters, your mind will be like "Ah, so that's what the written form of XYZ looks like," giving your mind something concrete to which it can attach the abstract concept of the written word (and thereby solidifying the learning process of that language's written characters).
Good luck with all of your learning!
- Ian (The guy in the Mario cap) I'll keep you posted. :-)
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