Re: Some people hear languages better than others
Posted: Tue Sep 10, 2019 10:00 am
Absolute pitch/perfect pitch is a special skill where you can identify exactly what note an instrument plays. This is not a skill you need for languages, even for "tonal" languages (relative pitch is what you need).
A "musical ear" is harder to define, but I'd say if you are able to sing from memory a song that you've heard, you've got a musical ear (that is, almost everyone). And if you can do this you have a good ear for languages.
However, there is a difference in being able to "hear" the prosody of a languages, and being able to reproduce/imitate it. I can easily tell apart and identify different dialects and accents of different languages, but I can't imitate them (perfectly).
Could you point me to the paper where you read about this? sounds interesting. I have never used songs for language learning but maybe I should.
A "musical ear" is harder to define, but I'd say if you are able to sing from memory a song that you've heard, you've got a musical ear (that is, almost everyone). And if you can do this you have a good ear for languages.
However, there is a difference in being able to "hear" the prosody of a languages, and being able to reproduce/imitate it. I can easily tell apart and identify different dialects and accents of different languages, but I can't imitate them (perfectly).
AnthonyLauder wrote:...Curiously, the brain filters out foreign SPOKEN sounds, but this filtering mechanism is switched off when the foreign sounds are sung. Neuroscientists even know why this "magic" happens (but that is not a topic for here).
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Could you point me to the paper where you read about this? sounds interesting. I have never used songs for language learning but maybe I should.