Does anyone here read braille, or know anybody who does?
I don’t have any need to know braille, but I thought it might be an interesting thing to learn. I have a few questions for anyone with knowledge of braille.
How easy is it to learn?
Could I become “fluent” in braille by practicing in my free time, or would I need to devote quite a bit of effort to the task? Keep in mind that I’m a sighted person who already knows how to read print - would this make things easier, or harder, or have little effect?
Where can I buy braille books?
I did a little bit of googling and found a couple of sites that say they sell braille books, but I haven’t yet looked extensively. Does anyone know of a good place to purchase braille books? Also, I’m assuming that most best-selling and popular books get a braille release eventually. But is there a delay, and how long, between print and braille versions? How wide a selection is there? Are they more expensive, and by how much?
How can I write in braille?
Let’s say I’ve mastered reading braille. Now I want to write the great American braille novel. How would I do this? Would I have to write it some other way then get it published by a place specializing in making braille books? Or is there some kind of paper that lets you make the dots, or something like that?
A related question - It’s not offensive for a sighted person to read braille, is it? I wouldn’t think so, but I have a horrible sense for what offends others.
I used to be able to read braille, but lost the ability after years of not using it.
I was able to pick it up pretty easily, but I was about ten years old when I first started) so that may have been the reason that it came so quickly. I’m also a sighted person, but that really didn’t cause any problems. You just have to stop yourself from reading the words with your eyes instead of with your fingers.
Actually, it will probably be easier to learn as a sighted person. You will have the option of reading with your fingers, then reading with your eyes to make sure you were right the first time.
Also, every letter of the alphabet is represented in braille, but the letters are also used as shorthand for words. You have to use the context of the sentence to determine whether the bumps stand for a word, or a letter (for example, a stand-alone “c” would stand for “can”, a “b” for “but” and so on.
Remember to read with the pads of the fingers, not the tips. Don’t start out with a book. See if you can get a page that just contains the alphabet and try to identify the letters. Don’t bother with words until you can do this, of course. Once you spend a lot of time acheiving this, you can most likely do brush ups once or twice a week just to keep yourself sharp.
There is a machine called a brailler that you can use to write your own braille. It’s about the size of a type writer and has six keys. There is a stiff braille paper that is specially made for the brailer, and is inserted the same way that paper is inserted into a type writer.
I would assume that braille books would be more expensive, because they’re much larger than regular books.
Your local library should have a few books in Braille. Even our underfunded library has two shelves of children’s books (Harry Potter takes up about 6 volumes). Our library also has a sort of Braille printer in lieu of shelves of books; anyone needing any book in Braille can have it printed for them.
(I know nothing about it, but had always understood it to be quite difficult for a sighted person to learn to read Braille. However, since Omega Glory seems to have mastered it, I may have heard wrong! My own grandmother tried to learn it as a child; they thought she was going to go blind. She never managed it, and kept her sight, so never had to.)
Good luck with your new venture.
Hmm, perhaps I was lucky then. I learned for the same reason that your grandmother did, dangermom. When I was young, my vision started deteriorating, so they rushed to teach me braille before it was too late. I was taught to identify the letters by sight first, then by touch. I picked it up in a couple of months and had regular braille reading lessons and homework to keep the skills sharp. Fortunately, my vision stablized and the lessons ended.