Have you ever known anyone who was illiterate?

The Scientician

I've only ever encountered illiteracy a few times and even then it was never full illiteracy. One time in an internet café someone asked me how to spell "donedeal.ie". Other times I've seen how people spell their address, or other times they try to read something written down and have a terrible time. It must be awful to get to adulthood and not be able to read or write too well. My grandad left school at 12 but I'm pretty sure he could read and write then as well as he needed to in later life. The internet is becoming increasingly useful, pretty much necessary for lots of things, I dunno how someone who has low literacy skills copes nowadays especially.

Siuin

Illiteracy must be such a nightmare for people on a day to day basis- you really don't realise how much you NEED to read until you're in a position where you can't. I recently moved abroad, and their script isn't the latin one we use, and if that wasn't confusing enough, they have a totally different script again for handwriting. I dropped off my camera to get the photos developed and when I came to collect them at the time specified, the guy had written a note on his door explaining something that I couldn't even translate. Waited around for 20 minutes feeling like a retard, too embarrassed to ask anyone passing by what it said, until the guy finally came back- ahhhh!

mackg

If I have they have never admitted to it.

I have friends who aren't illiterate who have asked me to spell simpler things than donedeal.ie by the way so I wouldn't assume they were. Unless they asked you to read the wholewebsite for them, some people are bad with spelling but illiteracy is different.

Balmed Out

A barmanager who always made us check deliveries were correct, do stocktakes, count the till's, write up the specials etc etc. After a while it was obvious he couldnt read or write but blustered on.

Ally Dick

I don't know any illiterates, but I know several people who cannot spell the word 'lose' properly

Hunchback

It's much more massively common than you would think.


People are mortified ( sadly ) by their own illiteracy and are constantly coming up with ever more ingenious ways to make it go undetected.

extremely talented and intelligent people are massively hindered by it. it's crappy

Chuck Stone

I have a bit of experience with Travellers and they (particularly the men) have some serious illiteracy problems and many are unable to fill out forms etc.

One of them even said to me once 'what time is it there'? pointing at a clock.

It's difficult for them in a way but in another way it's a sort of freedom.

Rabies

With all the text speak floating around, I think the numbers will get higher in the next few years.
Society is getting dumber.

Chuck Stone

Ally Dick wrote: »

I don't know any illiterates, but I know several people who cannot spell the word 'lose' properly

Big deal.

Joey the lips

yes i did and do. I was involved with the youth service for a while and got to know a lot of people.

Its amazing how they actually cope. Just because they are illiterate does not mean they dont understand everything for example. Men and women signs on toilets.

I knew this lad who use to pretned he was blind without his glasses and just turn to someone and say " excuse me could you please read that out to me i forgot my glasses"

Its amazing some of the intelligent copeing mechanisms...

This is the problem with illiteracy.... most people assume stupidity....

Fago!

My gf's ma is. Can't read or write, gets her daughter to write out everything for her, and can't even pronounce many words. "Jean Claude Van Damme" becomes "Jon vod kazzam".. So sad.

mackg

Oh sh*t yeah I completely forgot, there was a woman who used to come into the shop where I used to work who would ask what stuff was and always used to say she forgot her glasses, sad really. Also practically every traveller I have met. One of them came up to me outside a shop once and asked me to explain the instructions on the back of his head lice shampoo to him lmfao he was a cu*t, hope he's not reading this.

Hangballlouie

Both my parents are unfortunately, but they just get on with it. My dad is one of the most intelligent people I have ever met, and has always worked, so it hasn't hindered him that much tbh. I know it embarrassed them and still does but they don't wanna learn now, no matter how many times I've offered to teach them. As part of a college project, I researched how many people in my area couldn't read and/or write, and the figures worked out that every four in ten couldn't to some degree or another. This is in an inner city area of Dublin, so it is not as uncommon as we would think, it's just that a lot of them have high intelligence, and can mask it very easy! Tbh it really embarrassed me about my folks when I was younger, but they made sure that there was people to help me with homework/studying etc. Typing off my iPhone so sorry if there is any mistakes

Mr Benevolent

Fago! wrote: »

My gf's ma is. Can't read or write, gets her daughter to write out everything for her, and can't even pronounce many words. "Jean Claude Van Damme" becomes "Jon vod kazzam".. So sad.

Sounds more like severe dyslexia.

amacachi

Confab wrote: »

Sounds more like severe dyslexia.

I most certainly will not.

Fago!

Confab wrote: »

Sounds more like severe dyslexia.

Nah it isn't, like it's not that she just can't spell, she can't read anything. she gets her daughter to read every letter that comes to the house, and hides it when i'm there "oh i misplaced me glasses, will you read this for me" and even when it's just from memory, "ah yeah tha' film wi morgan freeman was on the other day, shawshamp redenkem".

Jumpy

Gdhnanndggsbbabah

Biggins

The Scientician wrote: »

Have you ever known anyone who was illiterate?.

Yes. An ex-father-in-law.

4zn76tysfajdxp

My nephew is illiterate. Then again, he is only two.

paddyandy

I was staying in a rehabilitation unit years ago and a man got talking to me and told me that he was ready to go home.He next said that he could'nt go because." i cant't read anything on buses or timetables."I never found out how he returned home.Collected i suppose.

tayto lover

N.A.L.A. (National Adult Literacy Agency) produced a report in 2005 that stated that 25% of Irish people had some degree of difficulty with reading and writing.

http://www.nala.ie/catalog/nala-annual-report-2005

Chuck Stone

Yeah it's na laughing matter.



.

EvesBlogg

sometimes, I am...but i mange ok!!

cosmicfart

There was a guy i knew in school in 5th year who could not read. He had a terrible stutter when trying to read, not your average stutter mind, he use to pronounce words like 'The' easily enough but when he came to some Big words he use to make what can only be described as a gasping for breath sounds as he tried to pronounce the word, it was the funniest sound ive ever heard and to this day still makes my chuckle when I thing about it

Lollipops23

My step father is teaching an adult literacy programme- he's working with a man in his early-mid sixties who has never been able to write. He can read just fine, but has made it to this stage in his life never being able to write.

What's more, he's kept this a secret from his children all this time. Only his wife knew. Since joining the course he's come on in leaps and bounds, and apparently he's like a new man. He's lately started being able to write cards, inc an anniversary one for his wife

Very proud of my step dad, he's probably getting just as much out of the experience as the man.:)

hardy_buck

afiqhajhaiuwyflaf P

recylingbin

Facebook.com

There's literally millions.

wat r dese cmmnts meen lolz?

A couple of lads on a GAA team I played for when I was younger were and had to deal with a guy in work who was once.

Needed him to fill out some forms so instead of the usual 'fill them out and send them back' I just met up with him and talked him through what they meant and he put an X in the appropriate places.

Was pretty nervous about it but he was a nice guy which made it easier.

gravityisalie

Chuck Stone wrote: »

I have a bit of experience with Travellers
One of them even said to me once 'what time is it there'? pointing at a clock.

off topic i know , but my brother is very well read , well versed in history and politics , has a full drivers liscence but he can't read a clock

mikemac

Yes
But managed to cope and always going on that he lost his glasses and could we read it for them.

It soon became obvious the real reason

If you know anyone constantly losing their glasses and looking for things to be read, a good chance this is what's going on

UglyBolloxFace

Have you ever known anyone who was illiterate?

Yes, kind of. The mother of a childhood friend of mine.

I remember we went to his house after school before, and his mother had left a note for him. It read as follows:

Dont fuget to fead de dahg

Obviously we know what she meant but c'mon.

seamus

I can well believe the 25% figure for people who have difficulty reading and writing, as I know plenty of people who wouldn't read anything more than a bus timetable or a street sign since they left school. Writing? Signing for something, at best, would be the extent of it.
Although we learn it early on, reading and writing still needs to be practiced or it will be mostly lost. There are plenty of people who have (and still do) leave school with a very fundamental grasp of literacy, but start basic jobs which require no literacy and so the skill is mostly lost over time.

That said, I've never knowingly encountered anyone who was functionally or actually illiterate. But as others have pointed out, they're often very good as disguising it so perhaps I have but just never noticed.

Chuck Stone

Dont fuget to fead de dahg

That's how dogs spell.

Smart dog how he tricked ye into feedng him again.

phasers

There were a couple of traveller girls in my secondary school that were in some reading group thing I was forced to volunteer for, and they literally could not read. I was going through the alphabet and really basic words, and all they could write was their names.

cocoshovel

Yes, there was at least 3 in my class during secondary school. They were the biggest thick ****ing dopes I have ever come across in my life. One of them once asked "How do you spell dawn? is it dan?" To which the teacher replied "no thats how you spell your name".

The other one quite ironically asked how to spell "illiterate" once. I'm pretty one of them was inbred too.

Birneybau

Was at an atm before, this big guy behind me, I thought "Oh Fcuk".

He asked me to hang on when I was finished. Gave me his card and asked me if I'd check his balance. Put his card in, he told me his pin number, I checked, told him 9e or something.

He was delighted, had enough for a pack of smokes. The guy was in his 30s...

stovelid

Yes, I've met a few. One a neighbour of my parents and others through previous voluntary work.

Jumpy

Birneybau wrote: »

Was at an atm before, this big guy behind me, I thought "Oh Fcuk".

He asked me to hang on when I was finished. Gave me his card and asked me if I'd check his balance. Put his card in, he told me his pin number, I checked, told him 9e or something.

He was delighted, had enough for a pack of smokes. The guy was in his 30s...

How did he intend to get a tenner out of the machine?

stovelid

Jumpy wrote: »

How did he intend to get a tenner out of the machine?

Checking his balance so he could use his debit card in the shop maybe...

phasers

Jumpy wrote: »

How did he intend to get a tenner out of the machine?

Maybe he was going to pay in with his card?

Faolchu

yes, my aunt cant read or write. my father had really poor spelling and basic reading, as does my mother.

also my handwriting is extremly poor and i'm in my 30s. I tend to have my wife write things for me where possible, fill in application forms, address envelopes etc. if i've to write to anyone i tend to type it. there's time where i try write words but it feels like my hand doesnt make the correct movement or doesnt get teh right signal or something and just squiggles comes out and i have to go back and redo it. during my exams in college i used pencil all the time so i could go back and rewrite stuff more legible.

Bipolar Joe

I always wondered, how do you wind up not being able to write if you can read? I always figured that if you could read the words, you could understand them, so you could replicate them. Not being ignorant, here, I just don't understand how that works.

My Uncle has severe trouble with reading and writing. He's a major conspiracy theorist, really into all that, and keeps notes on everything. When you look through them, from oldest to newest, the change is pretty amazing. He still struggles something terrible, but he went from not being able to read at all to being able to keep all these notes.

Faolchu

Lollipops23 wrote: »

He's lately started being able to write cards, inc an anniversary one for his wife

probably one of the best things she recieved from him too.

seamus

Bipolar Joe wrote: »

I always wondered, how do you wind up not being able to write if you can read? I always figured that if you could read the words, you could understand them, so you could replicate them. Not being ignorant, here, I just don't understand how that works.

Actually it's fairly simple.

Humans are great at pattern matching. Fantastic in fact. This is what marketing branding is based on. You see an image, and you instantly associate it with something. This is effectively how reading works. In fact, words don't even need to be spelled correctly for us to recognise them, or even the gist of them.

We're not quite so good at recalling patterns accurately. So while you can recognise the word "government" and understand what it means, writing it down requires you to remember exactly what letters it contains and in what order. Obviously it's a little more complex than that - you remember sounds and construct those sounds out of letters and piece them together - but you get the idea. So while someone may be capable of reading something to some degree, recalling the shapes and recalling them accurately is whole other kettle of fish.
I can read French, to a medicore degree. Could probably stumble through a newspaper article, thanks to Leaving Cert french. But write it down? Not a hope.

A simpler way to think about it is in logos. Think about a logo which has no text - the Apple logo. When you see it, you know it. You instantly think "That's the Apple company". In fact, you can recognise it distinctly from a picture of an apple, or a different drawing of an apple.
So it's a very distinctive logo. But right now, without going and looking at the logo, do you think you could draw the apple logo with enough accuracy that another person would looking at it and think of Apple the corporation, rather than just look at it and think, "That's an apple"? I couldn't.

Birneybau

Jumpy wrote: »

How did he intend to get a tenner out of the machine?

stovelid wrote: »

Checking his balance so he could use his debit card in the shop maybe...

phasers wrote: »

Maybe he was going to pay in with his card?

Yep, it doubled as a Laser card.

He must have had to ask somebody in the shop to enter his pin...

rainbowdrop

My aunt is 60, and never learned to read or write beyond the standard of a 6-7 year old. She told me that when she was in school she used to regularly get beaten by the nun's who taught her for being 'thick' and not understanding. It never really affected her life I don't think, she just used to get her husband/sons/daughters to write letters, fill out forms or read the paper for her when needed. She works as a domestic in a hospital so probably literacy skills are not of high importance for her job!

She reckons now that she was dyslexic, but dyslexia wasn't heard of in 1950's Ireland when she was in school, so she was written off as stupid. If that was nowadays she would have received extra classes to help her learn.I wonder if a lot of the older people in Ireland that never learned to read or write just had undiagnosed dyslexia?

mfceiling

Most of my "friends" on facebook

Cud hav dun wit 1 more hor n bed
C u on frid nite Hun
Yous r all mad yokes

This is even posted by university educated people.

inkwell

22% in 2006! :eek: Thats awful lot of people. How is this possible?

http://www.eurotopics.net/en/home/presseschau/archiv/results/archiv_article/ARTICLE6730-Astonishing-illiteracy-in-Ireland

DanTheMan91

A very good friend of mine left school very early so he is not the best at reading and writing. I just got use to it after awhile and now when he asks me to spell something I do so without even thinking.

Ally Dick

Chuck Stone wrote: »

Big deal.

Yes it is a big deal. It looks dreadful. I also doubt you would get an A in English in your Leaving if you mis spell "lose" in it !

charlemont

A former cell-mate couldn't read or write and he had no intention of ever learning either, So I used to write and read his letters for him, Absolutely hilarious stuff id be writing for him, Crazy guy, He was what people would describe not as a Traveller but a Knacker, Coated in scars, Rob anything that's not nailed down and had no fear of authority, he even escaped from Limerick Regional Hospital in handcuffs!! And it gets funnier, He made his way to a halting site in Tipperary and used a con-saw to cut the cuffs almost ripping his arm apart in the process. Same bloke would go around Weston and Tipp Town on a horse.

I heard he is doing ten years now but I doubt he will ever bother to learn.