Jump to content
Science Forums

Phonetics


ughaibu

Recommended Posts

My wife is Japanese but she speaks english extremely well. On one occasion I said to her something about drosophila, and was surprised by her reply "what's grosophila?". My best attempt at an explanation of this involves two phonetic limitations, 1) in japanese there are no distinct sounds for the english 'l' and 'r', there's only an intermediary sound with the tongue slightly behind the upper teeth 2) in english there is no initial 'dl' sound and english speakers tend to hear this as 'gl', try offering your friend a dlass of wine.

Somewhat after this event I was informed by the discovery channel that a child aged six months can distinguish the full range of sounds in all human languages but loses this ability when aged around ten months. By coincidence, at that time, my eldest niece had a daughter aged about six months, so, my brother taught her to distinguish initials 'dl' from 'gl'. She is now aged two and a half, I'll try to get an update as to whether or not she can still distinguish these sounds.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...