Is this how it feels to read Chinese? I cam across this post a while back, its a discussion regarding the ease (and/or speed) of reading text in Chinese vs text in English. To directly quote what another person had quoted:


  I feel English is a reading language, if you are reading an English book, you watch the word and make sound in your brain. But Chinese can be a watching language, take a Chinese book, I can watch over a paragraph and get the meaning of most part.


The entire thread is a nice read, though I sort of tossed it to the back of my mind after looking through it. But today I came across a neat post that has to do with our (English) brains work when reading, admittedly many of you may have seen this effect before but take a look regardless:



I've seen posts like this many times in the past but when I saw this today it made me recall the thread describing a native Chinese speaker's ability to  "watch over a paragraph and get the meaning of most part".

For native Chinese speakers, can you corroborate this claim, that you have the ability to skim a Chinese text and still form an understanding? If so, do you see this picture as an accurate analogy?
“汉字的序顺并不定一能影阅响读”

根剑据桥大的学研究，词汇中的字表母达的含并不义重要，重的只要是首末字母的位正置确与否。其字他母的位置可完以全混乱但你仍可通以顺地读出语句。这因是为人的意并识不是逐字阅母读，而逐是词阅读。

尽管剑大桥学从做未过这个实验，但这个段子确实让友外网海产生了不小兴趣。当它入传中国时，也就有了开头的那句话。

这也以可给一些网友一些发的挥空间，让他们利用这种自错动纠机制的洞漏来计设一些段子，以及用巧来妙回避某论些坛的关河键词蟹。

设注应计时意，最保好持每句两话首末个字不变，否效则果会大打折扣。另也外宜不过计设短语的句。

e.g. 小别致长得真东西。

source萌娘百科

btw，I can read the whole text in 3 seconds, partly because it expresses very simple ideas. It's true that reading Chinese text doesn't necessarily need you "voicing" in your mind. This is much different to alphabetic language for I know.