[TUHS] Mushi and Bagu

[Nick Downing]

I don't think Westerners are actually tone deaf as such. It's
basically that we didn't exercise our ability to tell those tones
apart when we were acquiring language, so we more or less lost the
opportunity to learn it when we could. Although it can be learnt
later, something that happens as a very natural process during
language aquisition, becomes a very artificial process involving
MONTHS or YEARS in the lab listening to tapes and testing oneself and
so on. Acquiring tones is somewhat similar to having perfect pitch in
music. There are courses out there that claim to teach you perfect
pitch. And, I believe it CAN be learnt, but it is an extraordinary
amount of work and will probably slide backwards if not maintained.
Anyway, I still find the phenomenon really strange and intriguing. My
wife is Vietnamese and I was at her relatives' house just tonight. I
spoke a little Vietnamese to her aunt and she didn't understand me at
all (as usual). It's because what sounds to us identical, sounds to
her like a completely different word -- so much so, that her brain
doesn't even register any similarity.
cheers, Nick
PS OT sorry.

On Thu, Feb 16, 2017 at 8:36 PM,  <jsteve at superglobalmegacorp.com> wrote:
> Try Cantonese… 9 tones, or 10, or 12.  Nobody agrees on how many which makes
> it all the more fun.  The more I learn, the more I don’t know it just adds
> in more confusion.
>
>
>
> I never realized I was tondeaf until I moved to Hong Kong.
>
>
>
> Sent from Mail for Windows 10
>
>
>
> From: Rudi Blom
> Sent: Friday, 17 February 2017 3:43 PM
> To: tuhs at minnie.tuhs.org
> Subject: Re: [TUHS] Mushi and Bagu
>
>
>
> Tonal languages are real fun. I'm living and working in Bangkok,
>
> Thailand and slightly tone deaf am still struggling.
>
>
>
> Which reminds me, regarding binary there are 10 types of people, those
>
> who understand and those who don't :-)
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>
>
> Cheers,
>
> rudi
>
>