> but this is what our brains evolved to be good at.
Really? Personally I find having to learn a new written script is one of the biggest barriers to learning a new language. Despite years of exposure (admittedly at low intensity) I still struggle with reading anything in
hiragana/katakana. To be clear I agree trying to learn a language using nothing but romanisations is almost certainly a bad idea, but I'm not sure I've ever felt the human brain had any special aptitude for learning written scripts - after all we've only been using them a few thousand years.
I guess I said it kind of the wrong way around. The written script has evolved to be used by humans. It's still evolving, of course, so it's not like it's a paragon of efficiency; but humans are good at pattern recognition, and the written word is exactly just that.
Really? Personally I find having to learn a new written script is one of the biggest barriers to learning a new language. Despite years of exposure (admittedly at low intensity) I still struggle with reading anything in hiragana/katakana. To be clear I agree trying to learn a language using nothing but romanisations is almost certainly a bad idea, but I'm not sure I've ever felt the human brain had any special aptitude for learning written scripts - after all we've only been using them a few thousand years.