Do letters with diacritical marks frighten you?

[reineke]

Not really. It just means a few extra characters to recognize. I like them even; it gives the language character. I think the difference between them and say kanji or whatever is that there's several thousand of them, and maybe like a handful of these (for any given language you're learning).

In English you of course use the letters ch to spell the sound /ch/. You also:

Use ch to spell the /k/ sound:

"Chaos" (like the English spelling)

... and the /sh/ sound:

"Chef"

You also use tch to spell the /ch/ sound:

"Witch"

That is so much better than č = /ch/ and š = /sh/

[BalancingAct]

I am fine with letters with dots on top, like those in German. I also have no problem with the associated sounds as they exist in my mother tongues.
But as soon as I see those birds on top, I feel very tired. Like completely depleted of energy.

Now I am more at ease seeing reineke's last post.
Yeah, knowledge is power.

[aravinda]

Why do Germans use smilies like this : ) or this : 0 If they already got Ü or Ö?
From Reddit & Facebook

And this Itchy Feet comic:
http://www.itchyfeetcomic.com/2015/02/e ... jX1ECN7FsM

[mick33]

No, not really. For me diacritics are part of the alphabet in certain languages, just like Mandarin has characters and Japanese has characters and two kinds of kana. I don't always remember things like when to use è or é in Italian, but I think that only means I've neglected Italian for a while.

[FyrsteSumarenINoreg]

[Josquin]

They keep my wanderlust in check: "Aw man, this language has diacritical characters? That means I have to learn how to pronounce new sounds. No thanks, I'll stick to the ones I'm studying."

For me it's exactly the other way round: "Wow, this language has diacritics? How are they pronounced? Cool, unknown sounds! I want to learn to pronounce them."

If anything at all, diacritics and unknown scripts only kindle my wanderlust.

[ilmari]

Let us not forget the dotless 'ı' in Turkish!
http://www.i18nguy.com/unicode/turkish-i18n.html

[Dragon27]

Let us not forget the dotless 'ı' in Turkish!
http://www.i18nguy.com/unicode/turkish-i18n.html

I also like the symmetry and balance that it retains: there's the dotless ı, which is capitalized into the dotless I, and then there's also the dotted i, which is capitalized as the dotted İ.

[Cavesa]

Nope, czech kids are used to them. What we run away from screaming is usually the i and y distinction and the sentence analysis.

But I agree typing is a pain. I type fluently in Czech, English, and French. (French is the most different one from the two. Czech is always qwertz, while English can be both). Actually, I'll type German fluently too, as soon I learn to make the content I'd like to type, since the special characters are on the Czech keyboard too. Spanish with its ñ is my next typing goal. And learning to type Polish will be a challenge!

[Chung]

Or did you use to have fears for these letters?

I mean those letters with a bird sitting on top, such as these Croatian letters: č, ć, dž, đ, š, ž

İ'vé ņèvêř ħäď şųçĥ ą fēāŕ, and have come to appreciate diacritical marks as they give big clues about pronunciation.

Many people are afraid of Chinese characters.

For me these letters or alphabets are truly fearsome.

It's not fear for me but realizing how much of a buzzkill they are. When I was studying Korean I was cool with Hangeul, but my eyes glazed over looking at Hanja.