SC - Theme Menus What would you like your hall to look like?

[Ratboy]

I think hearing the sounds is more of a function of exposure than biology. I
have read linguists that state any sounds we have not heard and imitated by 2
years old will be impossible to duplicate accurately as an adult no matter how
many language classes we take. I don't know how true that is though because I
certainly never heard anyone roll an r as a baby and my Spanish pronunciation is
pretty good now.

However, when I was teaching English as a Second language, I read that we have
to hear a sound 1,000 times to recognize it. I found this to be true with my
Latino students. It took a long, long time for them to be able to even hear the
difference between 'ch' and 'sh.'

Beatrice

Nigel Bell wrote:

> More cultural than genetic, I recall chatting with two friends; one of whom
> was Colombian born (Spanish first language, Italian second, and English
> third - and very adept in English) and the other who was Yugoslavian born
> (when there was a Yugoslavia - but considered herself Croatian). They were
> talking about the nuances of their respective first languages and used me
> (as the ethnically ignorant Anglo) as their test-subject/unbiased-third-party
> sort-of-thing. In slowly enunciating various words of their particular
> childhoods, it transpired that there were sounds, when Croatian was spoken,
> that 'the Colombian' could hear and I couldn't, and conversely, when Spanish
> was spoken 'the Croatian' could hear some some sounds which I couldn't and,
> again, there were some that I could differentiate which weren't aurally
> distinctive to the croatian ear.