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Comment by koakuma-chan | Hacker News Reader

> According to Yoo, by the time he was 1, her son learned both the Korean alphabet and 1,000 Chinese characters by studying the Thousand Character Classic, a sixth-century Chinese poem.[5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Ung-yong

Is that true? How is that even possible? Like, biologically.

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Age reckoning in South Korea (and other east Asian countries) is quite different than what you might expect. Age 1 in this context could be up to 3; if year 1 is your birth date and you age up at the new year, you could be "2 years old" while being alive for only 3 days. It could also work the other way around if they follow one of the other methods. Pretty interesting and not yet fully standardized!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_age_reckoning

Thanks, I'm gonna start using East Asian age reckoning to indicate how many professional years of experience I have.

Not sure it is, so I assume a lot of stretching of the truth is involved. Most twelve month olds struggle to support their head, are just learning to shape their mouths to form syllables, and have only had eyes capable of resolving letters on a page for a few months. IQ won’t make blurry images sharp, or your neck muscles stronger.

If a 12 month old can’t support its head that’s a big problem. That’s a 4-6 month milestone. 12 months is starting to walk.

My son started walking at 8.5 months. He's got a 3.5 month head start on those 12 month walking late bloomers. I have very high expectations. I wonder where his walking skills are going to take him one day, but this comment worries me because he has so far not shown any interest in the Korean alphabet.

Wow that is quite a feat! All of my kids started walking between 13-14 months.

I heard that walking that early is actually not good because bones are not prepared but still kudos to your kid.

> Most twelve month olds struggle to support their head

I don't know about the other claims, but this one is false. It would be somewhat concerning if a 6-month-old struggled to support their head.

Bent over, as in reading, for long periods of time? (Admittedly it’s been a while)

> Most twelve month olds struggle to support their head

Skill issue. Needs more belly time!

My nephew was reading at age two… he is obviously a very special kid, but no one really pushed him to do that. Apparently this would kind of freak people out in public.

I’m not sure if reading before age one is biologically possible, but I have a surprising data point in my life, so who knows.

My daughter turns two today, and she points out about half of capital letters when we’re reading a book. “That’s A”, etc.

Bullshit detectors are blaring. Asian parent embellish the intelligence of their child without any verification. From what I understand Kim Ung-yong himself said many of the stories about him when he was young were misunderstood or exaggerated.

I guess it's not clear what they mean by learned the alphabet. Could point to the character and say the sound I guess? Know their meaning (you couldn't verify this easily if they cant talk)?

It's considered prodigious to be able to read at 3. I guess recognizing characters is short of that, but barely. And at 1? Im open to more information but I see no reason to think its true.

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