[TUHS] Mushi and Bagu

[Rudi Blom]

The advantage of Thai is that it's character based so at least I can
see the difference easily and try to replicate. Pronouncing correctly
and hearing correctly is a different kettle of fish all together
though.

On 16/02/2017, Nick Downing <downing.nick at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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 :-)
>>
>>
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> rudi
>>
>>
>