A language learners’ forum

I agree, I think the language center in the brain gets automatically activated by sounds that are originated from another human vocal apparatus. I think we are evolutionary built that way and the EEG studies are a noninvasive and elegant way to see increase activity in the language center when passive listening to any language.

By the way, this remind me of something I read on the internet, which can be a quack study but I will paste the first lines anyways:

“New study may revolutionize language learning 27 January 2009
(PhysOrg.com) -- The teaching of languages could be revolutionized following ground-breaking research by Victoria University, New Zealand, PhD graduate Paul Sulzberger. Dr Sulzberger has found that the best way to learn a language is through frequent exposure to its sound patterns--even if you haven't a clue what it all means.
"However crazy it might sound, just listening to the language, even though you don't understand it, is critical. A lot of language teachers may not accept that," he says.”……

mentecuerpo wrote:I agree, I think the language center in the brain gets automatically activated by sounds that are originated from another human vocal apparatus. I think we are evolutionary built that way and the EEG studies are a noninvasive and elegant way to see increase activity in the language center when passive listening to any language.

By the way, this remind me of something I read on the internet, which can be a quack study but I will paste the first lines anyways:

“New study may revolutionize language learning 27 January 2009
(PhysOrg.com) -- The teaching of languages could be revolutionized following ground-breaking research by Victoria University, New Zealand, PhD graduate Paul Sulzberger. Dr Sulzberger has found that the best way to learn a language is through frequent exposure to its sound patterns--even if you haven't a clue what it all means.
"However crazy it might sound, just listening to the language, even though you don't understand it, is critical. A lot of language teachers may not accept that," he says.”……

That explains why I seemed to memorize Finnish words quicker than other languages I attempted. I used to listen to a lot of Finnish music, but had no intention of putting any effort into learning it.

mentecuerpo wrote:By the way, this remind me of something I read on the internet, which can be a quack study but I will paste the first lines anyways:

Sulzberger’s study wasn’t quackery, but that conclusion is.

His study looked at phonotactics, which is about which combinations of phonemes are possible in sequences in a language. Sulzberger demonstrated that it’s easier to learn words that use words that don’t break the phonotactic rules of your native language than those that do. Common sense, yes; trivial, no — it’s very important to test common sense assumptions. As far as I know, however, there was no part of his study that investigated unfocused listening — that was just a spurious claim.

For example, Lowland Scots (a Germanic language), Scottish Gaelic (a Celtic language) and Spanish all have /x/, but they all use it differently.

Syllables are typically broken down into “onset, vowel, coda” — the onset and coda consisting of consonants.

Scots has lost the sound /x/ in the onset, while Spanish and Gaelic retain it.

Gaelic allows it to form complex clusters with other consonants (eg chrò) but Spanish only ever has it on its own, as I understand it (eg in Jorge, the syllables are (I think) “jor” and “ge”, so both /x/s are isolated in their respective syllables) (I’m fact, I’m not even sure if /x/ ever occurs in a coda... something to look up later.)

Anyway, the point is that Scottish people often get frustrated when learning Spanish or Gaelic because they think that because they can say “loch” they know /x/ so shouldn’t have any problems, but they do, because of phonotactics.

Sulzberger gave advice based on something he didn’t actually prove, but I’ll bet that the findings of the current study don’t actually recommend anything, even though they demonstrated the effect.

I’ve no doubt the advantage is real, but I don’t think it would be efficient as a deliberate strategy for learning!

/x/ barely occurs in coda in Spanish, but an example of where it does is the word reloj "watch".

Cainntear wrote:Spanish only ever has it on its own, as I understand it (eg in Jorge, the syllables are (I think) “jor” and “ge”, so both /x/s are isolated in their respective syllables) (I’m fact, I’m not even sure if /x/ ever occurs in a coda... something to look up later.)

It's often weakened in coda (becomes more of an approximant /h/, rather than a fricative /x/). It is rare to have /x/ in coda in Spanish words, but there words like "boj" and "reloj", for example. Both came from Catalan (which may explain the rare "j" in coda). "Reloj", btw, can be pronounced simply as "reló" (with the final /x/ phoneme omitted altogether).

edit: another nice word to remember - carcaj (quiver).

Interesting study and results.

Thanks for your feedback. I will read more on the phonotactics.

As for the Sulzberger study, I was not able to find the original paper.
If someone can forward me the link or the pdf, I will appreciate it.