got a lr f p{th}alo td

[pne]

(Well, actually yesterday, but I didn't read it till today.)

Thanks! And glad that the stylus got there all right.

I even managed to read nearly all of it :) In a couple of places, I couldn't quite make out what it said, probably because some of the dots were reflected or something.

And I'm glad you didn't write in full grade 2 contracted braille, because I don't know all the contractions yet :) The ones you did use I either knew or could puzzle together quickly enough.

Comments

[it0376.livejournal.com]

*points at usericon* It says pne, doen't it?

[pne.livejournal.com]

Indeed it does!

Can you read braille?

[it0376.livejournal.com]

Philip
Newton

:D

Well, a couple of years ago I had learned the alphabet and basic stuff. Now that I read this entry of yours, though, I went back to relearning it, because I'm crazy like this. :)

[pne.livejournal.com]

Well, a couple of years ago I had learned the alphabet and basic stuff. Now that I read this entry of yours, though, I went back to relearning it, because I'm crazy like this. :)

That's kind of how I got into Braille :)

pthalogreen posted an entry in a script derived from Braille; I figured out fairly quickly that it was based on Braille and hunted down some descriptions of the Braille alphabet in order to decipher her post.

But then, because I'm crazy like this, I didn't throw away the tables after I had figured out the entry but continued learning braille :) Found brl.org (http://www.brl.org/) and started learning English grade 2 contracted braille. I also got hold of a description of German braille as a text file. (And I hope I correctly converted the ASCII to braille, or I'll have learned things incorrectly!)

Did you learn braille for the Roman or the Greek alphabet? Or both?

[tungol.livejournal.com]

When I was maybe 9 or so, I learnt Braille from a family friend who was legally blind. I even got to use her Braille typewriter, which was very neat. I've forgotten most of it by now though, alas.

[it0376.livejournal.com]

Nifty site there *bookmarks*

I had started learning Braille because it's possible that I'll need it at some point. I just studied the basic stuff from online courses I had found. And yep, it was the Roman alphabet. Once I learn it, though, I want to learn the Greek one too. If I ever learn it properly anyway.

[pne.livejournal.com]

Nifty site there

Indeed.

I had started learning Braille because it's possible that I'll need it at some point.

Oh! Are your eyes that bad? Or are they getting worse?

Once I learn it, though, I want to learn the Greek one too.

Here's one description of Greek braille (http://homepages.cwi.nl/~dik/english/codes/braille.html#Greek). And the letters match what's in World Braille Usage. (The punctuation characters don't quite match, and WBU only lists a handful of non-letters.)

There's a typo on the website: the "eta + upsilon" should, of course, be HY and not EY. The description is correct, fortunately.

Greek braille

[pne.livejournal.com]

Greek braille is pretty self-explanatory if you know Roman braille.

The letters go (using English Braille for signs that aren't in A-Z):

A B G D E Z {ar} {th} I K L M N X O P R S T Y F H {and} J

So the only surprise is maybe J = omega and possibly H = chi. And the assignments for eta and psi just have to be learned.

Oh, and Roman braille U stands for Greek braille ou, which is also easy to remember.

[leora.livejournal.com]

You might want to check out i_l_brl. It's slow and mostly English-focused, but its memories link to some resources and it's pretty friendly.

It's actually a bit embarassing how Pne and Pthalogreen seem to be doing so much better at Braille than I am... but odd as this is to say, I think it's easier for them because they can see. And my other health problems certainly don't help. But it feels good to be able to read even just a little Braille, and I started learning it with a firm decision that I was in no hurry. If I learn it really slowly, that's okay. Because I don't want it to become something that stresses me out. And I have managed to read a whole book in Braille - sure aimed at incredibly young kids (like the kind you read out loud to kids too young to read), but still, it's nifty.

[it0376.livejournal.com]

Oh! Are your eyes that bad? Or are they getting worse?

No, currently they're not. But I have the exact same things my grandmother has, only worse. And seeing how she's almost blind, it's really possible that I'll become blind at some point as well.

Here's one description of Greek braille. And the letters match what's in World Braille Usage. (The punctuation characters don't quite match, and WBU only lists a handful of non-letters.)

Oh, thank you! *bookmark*

[it0376.livejournal.com]

*nods* It's not that hard to see the dots and remember how many each letter has. However, if I needed to learn "normal" Braille without seeing it, I don't think it'd be that easy.

Re: Greek braille

[it0376.livejournal.com]

It's very easy, indeed. Once I manage to actually make myself learn it properly, I'll definately learn the Greek alphabet as well.

[pthalo]

ooh, I'm glad y got x! I s{en}t y a po{st}c{ar}d too a few days ago. :) Postc{ar}ds {ar}e nice & {th}ick {wh} makes {the}m nice {for} writ{ing} brl.

[pthalo]

Did y get {the} lr I s{en}t y yet? :)

[leora.livejournal.com]

Not yet, but there have been a lot of non-mail receiving days recently.

[pthalo]

*nod*, oh, okay. I forgot about the whole US thanksgiving thing. I hope you like it. It's a one page brailled letter, probably somewhere in between grade 1 and grade 2 and I proofread it, so unlike pne, you won't have any mirror-image letters *g* and also one page of poetry that I really liked as a child (so much that I memorised it).

[pne.livejournal.com]

I sometimes wonder whether it mightn't sometimes be convenient to use Braille contractions when writing normal text to save some space :)

Single-letter contractions and whole-word contractions would probably work best, as with the things such as {ar} and {day} and {for} you'd have to memorise seemingly-arbitrary symbols to stand for those Braille patterns. (& for {and} is pretty straight-forward, but % for {for} is less so. And then different fonts disagree in the symbol-to-pattern assignment; at least, German pseudo-Braille fonts seem to use a different system than US ones.)