I have to look up words I can’t pronounce, too. I often sound things out aloud to help with that, but I don’t actually hear the words read out in my head.
I usually hear words and read relatively slowly - faster than the average person but slower than most serious readers. I can also read very quickly without hearing the words and just try to absorb the information, but I don’t comprehend and retain it as well as when I take it slow.
Oddly enough, though, you’d think that hearing the voices in your head would either mean you read at the same speed you’d speak, or you’d hear it sounding really sped up - but neither is the case for me. Somehow I can hear all the words in my head at a rate greater than speech but without the preception that it’s like someone talking very fast. I’m not quite sure how that works - do other people perceive it the same way?
I hear words when I read for fun, but I can also read very fast, in which case I don’t hear the individual words, but I hear something faintly. Male, 26.
If I’ve just been listening to an audiobook, which is pretty frequent, I’ll hear the words read out by the audiobook’s narrator. At other times, not really.
(Male)
Same here. If the book has been previously encarnated as a movie, I “read” the book in their voices, and “see” the characters from the movie.
My head is a busy place.
I thought there were two kinds of people, those who “see” what they read like a movie, and those who “hear” what they read like there’s someone telling the story. Now there are people who do neither?! I’m so confused…
I hear the stories 99.8% of the time. the other .2% of the time I can actually understand what people mean when they say they see the scenes in their heads. I don’t see the majority of stories I write, either, so it’s always a shock when someone tells me they can see a story of mine that way.
Hear words while you read? I think I’d go nuts. Speaking words is slow. Reading is fast.
In other words, nope, I don’t hear words while I read, and I read pretty fast. I know this is true because I’m constantly coming across words I know that I can’t pronounce. I can spell them, I know what they mean, but I butcher them when I say them because I never associated the written word with the spoken one. Luckily, my husband thinks it’s cute that I mispronounce so many words. I’ve been horribly embarrassed in work situations before because I mispronounced a word repeatedly and badly, enough that someone finally corrected me.
I voted “no” but I already knew that most people do, in fact, hear the words as they read them. I’ve had this conversation with friends before.
Both for me.
Reading here is very much like listening to a conversation. But when I read a good novel I am transported into a film.
And there’s little about conscious process involved. It’s more like a trance state and I go far, far away into the book!
Same with when I play the piano. When it’s time to turn the page I momentarily become aware of myself and surroundings.
I don’t really hear the words of narrative text, or nonfiction, but I definitely hear the dialogue. What drives me nuts is badly written dialogue, because it doesn’t feel like “listening” to an actual conversation.
I only hear them if I think about it too much, if I’m having trouble understanding a passage, or when I first start reading. After that, if I’m immersed at all (and if the words aren’t spoken dialogue, or poetry, or something like that), then no I don’t.
All the time.
I am a *very *fast reader if the content isn’t too terribly challenging, so I don’t necessarily ‘hear’ every single word individually, but there is definitely a dialogue going on in my brain the entire time. The voice is usually mine, but sometimes it will be the character that is speaking/narrating (if the book in question is written well enough for me to immerse myself that deeply).
I do the same thing when I am writing, in which case it’s almost always my own voice.
Not all of them, but I hear dialogue in my head in my conception of what the character would sound like.
ETA: Sometimes I hear non-dialogue too, like snow crunching under boots.
Ah, that’s how I read - I was having a hard time putting it into words, that I don’t exactly hear the words, but something more…gestalty. I am a very fast reader, too.
- Female.
I do and it annoys me sometimes. I can be happily reading, engrossed in what the characters are doing and suddenly think to myself “Hey, I’m making up the sound of their voices myself”. It makes it strangely self conscious to read that way.
By the time I got to “It makes it…” I had already started to do so, and its my own bloody voice! :rolleyes:
I try not to hear any words when I read, but sometimes they creep in when I’m reminded of them (like in this thread).
I just think pronouncing the words in your head as you read them slows you down.
I read aloud often, professionally, and that might be part of the reason I am more prone to hear what I’m reading. I’ve also done some radio voice work, and my ear is acutely tuned to accents and inflections. I can read really really fast if I want to, like the disclaimers at the end of commercials that fly by unintelligibly.
Gestalt. That’s a good word for it.
Even knowing that many people are like you, I still can’t quite grasp how that works. Aren’t descriptions of people and scenery frustrating? You picture a person, then learn they’re dirty blonde, then fat, then have one leg, and a hump on their back. Or it’s a forest, but it’s night time, and the trees are all burned up, and there’s a dead body over there… it sounds very tiring, trying to mentally picture everything in the story that way when by its very nature writing gives you the picture one piece at a time.
Female here, quick and avid reader. I sort-of-hear the words. Enough so that, on the odd occasion I hear someone SAY a word I’ve only ever seen written down, chances are good I made up my own pronunciation and I have to visualize what they are saying before I think ‘OH!! So THAT’S how you pronounce ‘awry’!!’ A mental face-palm generally follows.
Oh, and I’ve been known to completely disregard the actual description of a character in favor of what I know they look like. I’ve gone several books into series before really SEEING what the words are saying regarding that person’s looks, and I am genuinely surprised.
There is no way Thomas Raith has dark hair. He is white-blonde. 'cause I say so.
Sorry, Jim!
I also know EXACTLY what Harry Dresden’s apartment looks like, and I am sure it is not as Mr. Butcher really sees it. 