In regards to Shizune

[Caesius]

Wouldn't a deaf person be able to improve their English skills by reading a lot? Even comic books (which have a lot of dialog)?

Would reading an alien language you've never heard spoken make you appreciate its intricacies?

If it's impossible for humans to speak or hear the alien language, they would still eventually be able to translate it if those aliens did enough to teach them the language, from simple things like pointing to a rock and writing down the word for "rock" in their language to acting out whole sentences, and eventually writing down rules of grammar. (Assuming of course those aliens came from an Earth-like planet and their language was structures like the ones on Earth, but that's neither here nor there...)

[stalk]

Most people avoid us when they hear we are deaf!

Because they can't communicate or because they don't want to speak to someone disabled?

I do hear your points, but stupid people in masses (deaf rights activists) are no more intelligent than the average rock. (Sorry rocks, I know you don't want to be put on their level!)

Both. I am able to speak because I'm born hearing, but even though I'm quite capable in lip reading, most people avoid talking to me because of the time consuming nature of it. I.e. when I returned to a hearing school for grade 9-11, I came to develop some issues in regards to abandonment. Hearing people would go out of their way to talk to me initially, probably out of some sense of sympathy or wanting to be my "savior" or whatever. And after a few weeks of being patient with discussing things with me, they would start to get tired of it.

People would start to, probably unconsciously, treat me as a third wheel, then stop inviting me to things, then outright ignoring me when I tried to talk with them. The cycle would repeat itself over and over again until I eventually stopped caring and didn't want to meet new people anymore in fear of being abandoned/disappointed later on. Everyone always said they would never be someone like that, but they all do it anyways.

And that's only for the people who DO go out of their way for me to begin with. Most people just go straight to the ignore phase because I'm too much a pain to talk to.

[Lon]

I can TOTALLY picture Shizune working like a dog to improve her written English. She would see it as a challenge, a way to "win". Even if that's not exactly how it works in real life, I figure I can suspend my disbelief.

[gotryfag]

If it's impossible for humans to speak or hear the alien language, they would still eventually be able to translate it if those aliens did enough to teach them the language, from simple things like pointing to a rock and writing down the word for "rock" in their language to acting out whole sentences, and eventually writing down rules of grammar. (Assuming of course those aliens came from an Earth-like planet and their language was structures like the ones on Earth, but that's neither here nor there...)

Maybe a language is a wrong word. A completely alien form of communication would be a more suitable depiction of how deaf people see spoken and written word. It's simply completely different from how they perceive the world, from how they actually think. It's not that people who are born deaf are stupid or anything, but their verbalized thought isn't composed of the same verbal images you and I are thinking with. It's simply very hard for them to think with spoken tongue words and concepts, simply because they don't themselves think in the same way.

[Rednal]

Language development is... interesting. Take the differences between Japanese and English; some people who speak English as their primary language can't perceive certain extended vowel sounds in Japanese.

...

Although for those notes Shizune had, maybe Misha proofread them?

[stalk]

If it's impossible for humans to speak or hear the alien language, they would still eventually be able to translate it if those aliens did enough to teach them the language, from simple things like pointing to a rock and writing down the word for "rock" in their language to acting out whole sentences, and eventually writing down rules of grammar. (Assuming of course those aliens came from an Earth-like planet and their language was structures like the ones on Earth, but that's neither here nor there...)

Maybe a language is a wrong word. A completely alien form of communication would be a more suitable depiction of how deaf people see spoken and written word. It's simply completely different from how they perceive the world, from how they actually think. It's not that people who are born deaf are stupid or anything, but their verbalized thought isn't composed of the same verbal images you and I are thinking with. It's simply very hard for them to think with spoken tongue words and concepts, simply because they don't themselves think in the same way.

This guy explained it better than I did. It has little to do with intelligence, as he says. Just a perception of the world.

[Caesius]

Although for those notes Shizune had, maybe Misha proofread them?

That would also mean Misha "proofread" everything she's signing as she speaks, which isn't the case considering she has trouble interpreting "dis-in-gen-ious".

Maybe a language is a wrong word. A completely alien form of communication would be a more suitable depiction of how deaf people see spoken and written word. It's simply completely different from how they perceive the world, from how they actually think. It's not that people who are born deaf are stupid or anything, but their verbalized thought isn't composed of the same verbal images you and I are thinking with. It's simply very hard for them to think with spoken tongue words and concepts, simply because they don't themselves think in the same way.

I think I see your point. I don't know how deaf people think, but while the written word accurately reflects spoken language, sign language (as described in the OP) doesn't, even if it accurately reflects how the deaf think.

Still, picture books and comic books may help more than just reading novels. I wouldn't be surprised if there were educational comic and picture books geared towards the deaf to help them associate pictures with words.

[gotryfag]

Still, picture books and comic books may help more than just reading novels. I wouldn't be surprised if there were educational comic and picture books geared towards the deaf to help them associate pictures with words.

Actually, in Finland there are specific courses to teach born deaf people to write properly by going through books and explaining the vagaries of the subtle hints in the writing. The problem as I understood from my cousin, isn't so much that deaf people don't understand clear concepts, but certain subtleties of the written word. That string, you see, could be said by "my cousin told problem not consept, problem..." (don't know how to express that thought in deaf thought or whatever).

[stalk]

Although for those notes Shizune had, maybe Misha proofread them?

That would also mean Misha "proofread" everything she's signing as she speaks, which isn't the case considering she has trouble interpreting "dis-in-gen-ious".

Maybe a language is a wrong word. A completely alien form of communication would be a more suitable depiction of how deaf people see spoken and written word. It's simply completely different from how they perceive the world, from how they actually think. It's not that people who are born deaf are stupid or anything, but their verbalized thought isn't composed of the same verbal images you and I are thinking with. It's simply very hard for them to think with spoken tongue words and concepts, simply because they don't themselves think in the same way.

I think I see your point. I don't know how deaf people think, but while the written word accurately reflects spoken language, sign language (as described in the OP) doesn't, even if it accurately reflects how the deaf think.

Still, picture books and comic books may help more than just reading novels. I wouldn't be surprised if there were educational comic and picture books geared towards the deaf to help them associate pictures with words.

There are plenty educational books, but you can't force people to learn :p So if there's no desire, then there's no learning happening. And most people dont care enough to learn, as evidenced in schools :p

[Layzuhl]

So you're the one percent that's proficient in english?

[Caesius]

He said he went deaf after having acquired speech.

[Layzuhl]

Oh dur. Read the OP last night, didn't re-read it just now.

[Nachoman]

First being that Misha is sitting next to Shizune. That's a excellent way to add neck conditions to Shizune's list of disabilities.

One other thing that you may find interesting, which I do not know if it's touched upon later (I've just gotten past the part where I met the school nurse) however deaf mutes have the most impressively horrid written English in existence. Due to their having never spoken english, so typically during stages where they learn to communicate they learn sign language called "American Sign Language" (Japan has their own equivalent which follows a similar grammar rule structure) where a lot of words are omitted. A typical example that's commonly given is the sentence "The car was speeding along the highway while being chased by the police went up the bridge and flew over it at high speeds, crashing into the street below and swerving back and forth before resuming the chase" would require only two signs from an fluent ASL signer.

As such their English grammar, by the time they start writing, is lacking significantly and tend to omit words. A example of what a deaf mute might write, if attempting to convey the earlier sentence, would be "car speed while chase jumped bridge with police behind". It makes sense from an ASL standpoint but clearly not proper english. How this could be taken advantage of as a moe moe thing later in the game is up to the writers. Perhaps some kind of embarassment added to her somewhat tsun tsun side where she wants help with her english (japanese?)?

Note: I became deaf at the age of 4, and am not mute.... as well as the fact I went to an oral school until I was 8 before learning sign language and joining a school for the deaf. So, my english is significantly better than most- for reference I had to take several classes at the local high school because education at the deaf schools significantly lack in comparision to public schools. My understanding is that Japan is even worse so, but you know how these rumors are.

About the first thing, I would believe that Misha's sitting position comes from the fact that she's a student herself. Although it would make sense for her to be sitting at a 90º angle and in front of Shizune, or for both of them to be sitting 45º toward each other, so neither has to do much neck movement to see each other or the blackboard.

If Japanese Sign Language is based upon ASL, then we would need to learn just how closely related are the two sign languages. If they happened to be close enough, then learning Japanese and JSL would count as having two different languages.
I would know:
[*] I'm not a native English speaker. I was raised with Spanish as my first language, yet could never learn English even after years of afternoon courses. I only learned English after learning written Ancient Greek and Latin. Think is, I didn't really learn how to speak English: nowadays, while I edit literary works in English, written by native English speakers, I know these very people who come to me to correct their writing wouldn't believe its the same person speaking.
[*] After learning English, and once I knew better English grammar and vocabulary than I ever did in Spanish, I noticed that now I was thinking in English and translating into Spanish before I spoke. Trying to reconcile, I created a conceptual language which I called Babel 19 (named after the book "Babel 17" by Samuel R. Delany), which was supposed to help me organize my thoughts. It helped,to a degree: nowadays I think in English when I write, think in Spanish when I speak, not use any language when I think and don't really notice the input language when I receive input.
[*] People can learn different levels within a single language: street talk, politicalese, medicalese, technicalese, media slang, etcetera. Is just like body language: you can be a meek and shy debutante one second, then blink and shift to assassin/bodyguard and do a patrol of the back alley behind your hotel. Just like I can slip inside a hospital or get a free 5-Star meal just by mixing in with the media and waving my cellphone like a camera, I can slip through traffic violations by treating the traffic cop like I'm an equal and thus off-limits. (Police corruption still runs rampant in México).

With all this, what I meant to say is that if Shizune made council president she would first need to be an exceptional student. Perhaps conciously, perhaps not, but she might handle Japanese as a separate language than JSL.

Perhaps you too handle ASL as a separate language than English. After all, you handle two separate grammars and vocabularies (one sound-based vocabulary, one gesture-based vocabulary), and your speech about ASL grammar sounds like me trying to explain the Mexican concept of Death to an American.

Anyway just my thoughts on the game so far. I'm not offended by the content of the games, however I can easily see some kind of community outrage at the game if it ever became well known. I found the game rather interesting from the perspective of someone who went from grades 5 to 12 living on campus at probably the closest thing to a school like in the game, a deaf school with a school for the blind on campus, and several classes for disabled kids. However they were all kept separate rather than all put in the same class like in this game.

Well, the game does have the blind kids on their own class. And the lesson seems to be deaf-accessible by having a teacher that barely speaks to begin with.

And now that I think about it, why hasn't Hanako learned Braille and transferred to Lilly's classroom?
Obviously it wouldn't have happened in the past, game-wise, as we wouldn't have met Lilly or Hanako; however, it could be a nice detail for the second or third story arc...
I might need to write a fanfiction about that. Don't know, second or third week into the path of these two girls and we find the two girls on the library helping each other through an assignment and passing around a Braille book.

[tyren]

And now that I think about it, why hasn't Hanako learned Braille and transferred to Lilly's classroom?

Lilly is a year ahead of Hisao and Hanako as I recall.

[stalk]

About the first thing, I would believe that Misha's sitting position comes from the fact that she's a student herself. Although it would make sense for her to be sitting at a 90º angle and in front of Shizune, or for both of them to be sitting 45º toward each other, so neither has to do much neck movement to see each other or the blackboard.

That's one point I forgot to touch on - I didn't know at the time whether Misha was a student or a full time interpreter. It is rather odd for her to be in an interpreting position while being a student. All obvious facts that it's a job - she should be paid for it, aside... most interpreters don't retain what they interpret. It goes in their ear, their brain translates it and it outputs in sign, they can't keep up with both retaining and interpreting at the same time. A little game to try is have someone talk a lot of random BS into your ear and you have to repeat it all, then tell us what it's all about later. Now make that translating to a different language, you can see how hard it is.

Again, I'm all for suspension of disbelief and 99% of people playing the game wont notice these things, I only do because I'm deaf so they strike me personally as odd. Whether it's relevant to anyone but me, I dont know, but I thought perhaps people would enjoy an insight from someone who actually is deaf.

If Japanese Sign Language is based upon ASL, then we would need to learn just how closely related are the two sign languages. If they happened to be close enough, then learning Japanese and JSL would count as having two different languages.

It does count as having two different langauges. Japanese and JSL are not remotedly alike at all. And JSL is not based upon ASL, the similarity ends at the fact both languages removed many words from proper grammar in order to allow the language to be more fluid. Signing word for word takes longer than speaking, so both ASL and JSL require the signer to restructure the grammar in order to speed it up and be more efficient.

I would know:
[*] I'm not a native English speaker. I was raised with Spanish as my first language, yet could never learn English even after years of afternoon courses. I only learned English after learning written Ancient Greek and Latin. Think is, I didn't really learn how to speak English: nowadays, while I edit literary works in English, written by native English speakers, I know these very people who come to me to correct their writing wouldn't believe its the same person speaking.
[*] After learning English, and once I knew better English grammar and vocabulary than I ever did in Spanish, I noticed that now I was thinking in English and translating into Spanish before I spoke. Trying to reconcile, I created a conceptual language which I called Babel 19 (named after the book "Babel 17" by Samuel R. Delany), which was supposed to help me organize my thoughts. It helped,to a degree: nowadays I think in English when I write, think in Spanish when I speak, not use any language when I think and don't really notice the input language when I receive input.
[*] People can learn different levels within a single language: street talk, politicalese, medicalese, technicalese, media slang, etcetera. Is just like body language: you can be a meek and shy debutante one second, then blink and shift to assassin/bodyguard and do a patrol of the back alley behind your hotel. Just like I can slip inside a hospital or get a free 5-Star meal just by mixing in with the media and waving my cellphone like a camera, I can slip through traffic violations by treating the traffic cop like I'm an equal and thus off-limits. (Police corruption still runs rampant in México).

With all this, what I meant to say is that if Shizune made council president she would first need to be an exceptional student. Perhaps conciously, perhaps not, but she might handle Japanese as a separate language than JSL.

I don't believe that becoming a student council president in Japan requires one to be a exceptional student - however I suppose that the only ones interested in such a position would be those interested in education so natural elimination would force that. I'm unfamiliar with real japanese culture (most is based on anime, which obviously is realistic durrrrrr) but I recall it being partly a popularity contest.

Perhaps you too handle ASL as a separate language than English. After all, you handle two separate grammars and vocabularies (one sound-based vocabulary, one gesture-based vocabulary), and your speech about ASL grammar sounds like me trying to explain the Mexican concept of Death to an American.

Yeah for instance, I have a fair amount of skill in British Sign Langauge, Africian Sign Language... however when I sign it, I must first think it then translate it. My brain thinks in english, and I speak and write english naturally. I also sign ASL naturally without thought. It's actually difficult for me to translate, because even though I can speak english, and I can sign ASL, the two are completely separate.. if someone asks me to say "soandso" to someone, I have to consciously translate it to ASL. Well not quite, but it's not fluid.

Well, the game does have the blind kids on their own class. And the lesson seems to be deaf-accessible by having a teacher that barely speaks to begin with.

Yeah I just played a little bit more and finally met Lilly, and noted that detail. So it is more similar than I originally stated.