From: Robo <robo@...>
Date: 2004-10-07T17:04:47+09:00
Subject: Re: Bit of the Matz Interview (in Rubyist Magazine)

Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> In message "Re: Bit of the Matz Interview (in Rubyist Magazine)"
>     on Wed, 06 Oct 2004 21:48:18 -0500, Shashank Date <sdate@everestkc.net> writes:
> 
> |I am curious to know how reading is taught in schools ... do they start
> |with a specific writing system?
> 
> Yes, they learn Hiragana and Katakana first.  My 7 year old
> son does not read any Kanji.
> 
> I'm curious about how Chinese children learn to write, since
> they have no phonetic writing system.
> 
> 							matz.
> 
> 

They learn how to write the basic strokes, the order you write a 
character, start writing basic characters, then complex characters.

For speaking they do use a phonetic system that starts with "ba pa ma 
fa", and Taiwan have special set of symbols for those sounds.

Robo