Re: Literacy

Jim Breen wrote:
aesthete8@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Should I believe Wikipedia since it claims that Japanese and Americans
are equally literate?:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate

If you believe the UN report they quote; yes.

However, since that report justs states the results without
mentioning their sources or methodology, you have a right (and
duty) to be skeptical. How anyone can claim an accuracy of 0.1%
in literacy measurements in languages with widely differing
script difficulties is beyond me. And one suspects, at least in
the case of Japan, that results are based on self-declarations
by governments.

The only source of an actual figure I know of is Sakamoto and Makita's
section in 'Comparative Reading' by John Downing, and IIRC they got
their figure from a small, self-selected Japan Times survey.

Dan

--
A billion here, a couple of billion there -- first thing you know it
adds up to be real money.
-- Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen
.