How the Brain Learns to Read Depend on the Language

Link:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120965705088459637.html

Excertps 1:

To learn the ABCs of English, we essentially harness our listening skills to a phonetic code. To become literate in Chinese, however, we must make much heavier use of memory, motor control and visual-perception circuits located toward the front of the brain. Children can master the 6,000 or so Chinese characters used in Mandarin and Cantonese text only by laboriously copying them out over and over again, until each abstract form becomes second nature.

My comments:
For kids learning Chinese: The good news is that it helps to develope other parts of the brain. The bad news is that it takes a lot of effort even for a natice learner. It requires a great deal rote memorization and practice.

Excerpts 2:

Even when readers in both languages looked at the same written characters, the brain activity was different, other researchers found. Arabic numerals of standard arithmetic -- used by readers of Chinese and English alike -- activate different brain regions depending on which of the two languages people had first learned to read, researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and China's Dalian University of Technology reported in 2006.

My comments:
This is the most interesting part to me. Naturally, I want my kids to active the same brain regions as native English learners, because they are competing against them head on. Unfortunately, that will make learning Chinese even harder.