From: Jeremy Bradley (jeremyb@nor.com.au)
Date: Thu 21 Nov 2002 - 04:49:58 GMT
At 02:33 PM 20/11/02 -0600, you wrote:
>> This article from ScientificAmerican.com has been sent to you by
>> wlwatts@cox.net.
>> --------------------
>>
>> August 2002 issue
>> FROM MOUTH TO MIND
>>
>> By W. Wayt Gibbs
>>
>> New insights into how language warps the brain
>>
"Some neuroscientists think they are
close to explaining, at a physical level, why many native Japanese speakers
hear "liver" as "river," and why it is so much
easier to learn a new language as a child than as an adult."
Yes Joe this is a fascinating article. Just on this point though, a few
years ago I was working with a youth group called 'The Flying Fruit-fly
Circus. We had a Chinese trainer, who was a middle aged man with a good
grasp of English. He had difficulties pronouncing the name, as I'm sure you
can understand. What he said was 'Frying Flute-fry'. It was the cause of
great amusement that, whilst he could obviously pronounce the required
syllables, he could not say the name of his circus in the same way that we
did.
My solution was to write down 'The Frying Flute-fry Circus' and ask him to
read it. He grinned a great big grin and, with perfect enunciation and posh
accent (or at least good enough for us Ausies to think perfect and posh),
said "The Flying Fruit-fly Circus". He knew that he had said it correctly
and joined our hilarity. So I think that he heard it the way that we said
it alright, it's just that he had to think the syllables differently.
Jeremy
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