I grew up in the US since I was five, and I'm a native Chinese speaker. I don't have enough vocabulary to read very well, so when I read Chinese online, I use http://www.popjisyo.com to assist me.
I don't know about the rest of you guys, but when I read English, I tend to see the whole shape rather than individual letters. It is not that much different than reading the hanzi that I do know. And just as you can pick apart English words based on its Latin or French or Gemanic roots, you can also pick apart the meaning of the hanzi based on the component radicals.
With regards to the speed of education, the Chinese and Japanese cultures as a whole has a much stronger literary tradition for the educated social class. In America, you can upgrade your social class by upgrading your financial statement. In the Chinese culture, social status is directly mapped to level of education. You prove it by taking nationwide tests, though the importance of this practice has been declining in the past two decades. Traditionally, the language and the mountains of literary history was what allowed the Manderin class to stay in power. I suppose that was why Mao Zedong went around breaking the traditional class power attacking the educational process ... and simplifying the pictographs.
As for innovation, having access to two different languages has helped me think and express problems in different ways. It is the same phenomenom of using two different programming languages, one more expressive in certain problem domains than another.
However, I don't think I'll ever actually _code_ in anything but English ...
I don't know about the rest of you guys, but when I read English, I tend to see the whole shape rather than individual letters. It is not that much different than reading the hanzi that I do know. And just as you can pick apart English words based on its Latin or French or Gemanic roots, you can also pick apart the meaning of the hanzi based on the component radicals.
With regards to the speed of education, the Chinese and Japanese cultures as a whole has a much stronger literary tradition for the educated social class. In America, you can upgrade your social class by upgrading your financial statement. In the Chinese culture, social status is directly mapped to level of education. You prove it by taking nationwide tests, though the importance of this practice has been declining in the past two decades. Traditionally, the language and the mountains of literary history was what allowed the Manderin class to stay in power. I suppose that was why Mao Zedong went around breaking the traditional class power attacking the educational process ... and simplifying the pictographs.
As for innovation, having access to two different languages has helped me think and express problems in different ways. It is the same phenomenom of using two different programming languages, one more expressive in certain problem domains than another.
However, I don't think I'll ever actually _code_ in anything but English ...