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Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 15, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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I noticed something odd tonight, as I'm worn out after a long day at work, my internal monolog has changed in tone.

It seems to have become flatter and without affect, in much the same way that your voice does when you speak too much and end up slightly hoarse. I stopped reading a story because my own internal voice became too unpleasant to listen to!

Anyone ever experience anything along those lines?

(On a slight tangent, I've seen people who don't internally verbalize claim they think faster than those who do. I can't say I agree to such a claim, I've never felt my chain of thoughts slow me down. But then again, I'm firmly in wordcel territory, so who knows?)

I've heard you can read faster and comprehend more when reading without internally verbalizing the words. I believe that but I haven't been able to train myself to do it consistently.

The trick is to view passages of texts as pictures instead of passages of texts that need to be read and enunciated in your head. Literally, scan your eyes through the lines and let your subconscious do the work.

I can do it to some extent, especially if I internally verbalize "one two three" over and over and just focusing on visually seeing the lines of text as a whole. But when I'm not actively trying I immediately revert to my old ways.

I'm not sure I can even do that, I've never read a word in my life without my internal narrator!

Wait, some people verbalize what they read? I have the problem of not knowing how to pronounce or spell a lot of words that are in my "read" vocabulary because I learned the symbol without verbalizing it.

I just make up a usually wrong pronunciation when doing this. For example when reading Game of Thrones Dothraki became Dork-a-thigh until I heard the term on the show. But I read by word shape and context, it's really fast, but makes me the world's word proof reader, because I knew what word was meant and just substituted it.

makes me the world's word proof reader

Yep, that checks out. 😉

I verbalize every word I've ever read. I do not choose to do this.