What is Digg?119 Comments
- MarkusX, on 04/30/2009, -0/+26This is incredible, although it's quite logical if you think about it. Languages are shaping how we think and hear and of course how we express ourselves and if the language attaches different meanings to tonal differences of the same word, then it's quite natural that people who speak that language natively need to make an effort to express themselves as clearl as they can. Much more than people who's language isn't relying on such tonal qualities.
BTW: "Deutsch" is the perfect last name for a scientist researching languages. :-) - DarkBlueAnt, on 05/01/2009, -2/+26This is wrong. If it were true, going to Karaoke bars with my Chinese friends wouldn't be as funny as it is.
- jasonboyee, on 05/01/2009, -0/+22This totally explains why I can't learn Mandarin no matter how many times I've tried. I can't sing for my dear life. Speaking of singing, Asian are awesome when it comes to Karaoke...Ahhhh, that explains it all.
- urbanetruth, on 05/01/2009, -0/+17Mandarin seems much more pitch-sensitive than other languages. Voice inflexion and pronunciation are more varied. So this makes sense.
- mandarin, on 05/01/2009, -0/+16Im surprised you can actually use the internet.
- PandaBearShenyu, on 05/01/2009, -0/+13Even if you do speak mandarin, you have to have the perfect 4 pitches down pat to really benefit from this. A lot of Chinese people don't really pronounce the tones well, so if you go to karaoke with them, they suck as much as the next person. lol
The hardest part when I teach Mandarin is for the people to get the sense of the 4 tones into their heads, since if they mix up the tones, it just sounds weird. XD - inactive, on 05/01/2009, -5/+18I tried to learn chinese. I really did. But the entire world worked against me to prevent me from learning Chinese.
First I learnt I was learning the WRONG chinese - cantonese, when most of China speaks Mandarin. One month wasted.
Then the teacher missed two classes. And even if she misses we have to pay.
Then I realized most people in my class ALREADY spoke mandarin and were there for a easy A+ and the 3 credits. It isn't very hard to find when most students in the class... are chinese. Results? An average of 95% in exams, and my grades were below 60%
Then came the mid-session exam. It was a miserable failure. The voice quality was horrible and I didn't understand ***** of what the person said. I ended up answering randomly wo shi xuesheng hoping to get a few points.
Then came a week vacations. One class lost. And at the end of the week - a seven weeks strike started!!!! No classes!!!! I swear this is complete *****, teachers started a strike to get a salary increase (which they eventually got) and we kept paying to stay home. At the end I had one class and I didn't know the strike ended so I didn't go. Result? I got my final monday on seven weeks of classes I was supposed to read.
Result? One session of chinese, $1000 and I barely speak 10 words, plus I risk failing and losing my credits, and dropping my GPA.
Morale of the story? Don't study chinese or at least study it in a good school. Anyway where was I going with all that... - yuckapoo, on 05/01/2009, -0/+10Since when does musicality equate to perfect pitch?
- crozon, on 04/30/2009, -0/+10There is a great episode of Radio Lab that deals with tonal languages - the first portion actually interviews Professor Diana Deutsch - give it a listen: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2006/0 ...
- VisualRhetoric, on 05/01/2009, -2/+11I hate Twitter but I think I'm beginning to understand it... Limit people's whiny drivel to 140 characters...BRILLIANT!
- blaydcor, on 05/01/2009, -0/+9No, that's from overbearing parents who threaten severe beatings if rigorous piano-practicing schedules are not adhered to
- vapn420, on 05/01/2009, -0/+9I'm more surprised he owns a computer. Actually, he's probably at the public library.
- chillybeans27, on 05/01/2009, -0/+7It's not BS. Mandarin and other tonal languages are different because the tone of a word and its direction can completely change its meaning. For example, in Mandarin the word 'ma' with different tones can mean mother, horse, to scold, or rope.
- inactive, on 05/01/2009, -1/+8Hell, it'd explain the amount of Chinese kids playing piano on YouTube.
- mattmollysdad, on 05/01/2009, -0/+7I have trouble with the opening: "Learning to speak Mandarin and Vietnamese as a child helps make you more musical, claims a study that suggests being fluent in the languages helps you have perfect pitch."
1. as a pianist for the last 57 years I still DO NOT HAVE PERFECT PITCH
2. I lived and performed in Asia for 15 years and it was easier for me to learn to write than speak the language
3. My 24 year old son does not sing or play the piano. He does have perfect pitch. Because of that and my obvious interest in Chinese from living in Taiwan I pushed him to learn Mandarin. He studied Chinese in college and spent a year at University of Beijing. He speaks fluently and has a great accent.
So I think the intro showed be rewritten. "Having perfect musical pitch makes it easier to learn how to speak Asian languages." - Syric, on 05/01/2009, -0/+6What does that have to do with perfect pitch?
Perfect pitch doesn't help you for ***** with writing music or playing an instrument. It can help you learn songs by ear faster, but that's about it. - raydeen, on 05/01/2009, -0/+6Who needs perfect pitch. We have Autotune. :D
- redrabbit, on 05/01/2009, -0/+6Why would it? It isn't the ONLY factor that determines one's musical ability. Cultural, economic and social factors are also important. I bet per capita, more Koreans and Japanese can afford to buy instruments for children earlier on than Chinese families. This is changing though, as the Chinese middle class grows.
- aristotle0dude, on 05/01/2009, -0/+6Have a chip on your shoulder do we? I think you are just upset because you cannot hold a note. Nobody is perfect pitch or even close to it all the time but some people do get close to it on a fairly consistent basis. Perhaps they are not perfect when measured by instruments but close enough for the typical human ear.
- blaydcor, on 05/01/2009, -1/+7What a fascinating personal anecdote; please tell another one.
- T0FUU, on 05/01/2009, -0/+6I think the point is that knowing a tonal language makes it easier for you to become perfect pitched/good with music. It's not like you're automatically going to be good if you speak one. Some people just can't pick it up, asian or not.
Futhermore, when you go to the karaoke bar/box, you can be as crazy as you want anyways. I don't go to the karaoke box to sing to my best ability. I go to have fun and let loose. Which sometimes means singing terribly. Also, you and your friends are probably half drunk. Right? - whorunbartertwn, on 05/01/2009, -0/+5Learning Chinese is hard work, no getting around it. The additional factors of a ***** learning environment would make it impossible for anyone.
- KingGorilla, on 05/01/2009, -0/+5I agree your life is *****
- inactive, on 05/01/2009, -1/+6I always thought black people are the best singers around.
- orsinoduke, on 05/01/2009, -0/+5This is depressing. Last week, I found some articles said Chinese/Korea/Japanese are smarter than us. They have the highest average IQ on this planet ...close to 104. Now, this article tells me that Chinese also can sing better than us. What else?
- Syric, on 05/01/2009, -0/+5Isn't this pretty common knowledge by now? It's pretty obvious that growing up needing to differentiate between different pitches/intervals will make you better at it.
Also, most of these comments = fail. People seem to assume that perfect pitch is supposed to be correlated to musical talent, or something. That's not true, and the article doesn't pretend that it is (although the title is misleading). Perfect pitch doesn't help you make music any more than clear vision makes you a good painter. It's just something some people can do. - matu4251, on 05/01/2009, -0/+4I didn't know that vietnamese was considered a chinese language... it doesn't sound even close to cantonese or mandarin and has a complete different grammatical structure. The conclusion of the study might be valid but the title of the article is dead wrong.
- whorunbartertwn, on 05/01/2009, -0/+4>A lot of Chinese people don't really pronounce the tones well<
Agreed. Some people stress too much about learning perfect tones but context plus combined zi into ci often makes it pretty clear. Chinese speakers often go neutral on trailing tones of common words with no loss of understanding. - beloitpiper, on 05/01/2009, -0/+4You're gonna put Coldplay and the Sex Pistols with The Beatles and Zeppelin? AND you forgot Clapton. Your music tastes are *****.
- Irishsmurf, on 05/01/2009, -0/+4Cool story bro.
- ValDeV, on 05/01/2009, -2/+6So high school musical is a biproduct of Chinese importing. SHIIIIIIIIIIIIII
- Syric, on 05/01/2009, -0/+4Nor does it purport to. RTFA?
- fuzzybunny1701, on 05/01/2009, -0/+4If you want to hear what Mandarin tones sound like, watch this pinyin video for kids produced by the People's Republic of China. The section on tones starts at 1:59.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9Ayvjy-Dgs - liuite, on 05/01/2009, -0/+4ma - mom, numb, horse, cuss....all depending on the tonation.
- Ilfirimain, on 05/03/2009, -0/+4So maybe this explains why 90% of "musical prodigies" seem to be of Asian descent...
- yuckapoo, on 05/01/2009, -0/+4http://www.aruffo.com/eartraining/research/article ...
Summary: "Thus the absolute hearing (perfect pitch) correlates neither with musicality, musical achievement, or academic giftedness. The data is hardly different when correlated with individual musical skills." - PandaBearShenyu, on 05/01/2009, -0/+3lol I hate Jay Chou. I don't even know what he's singing half the time, it's like he has no tongue or something. XD
- laim, on 05/01/2009, -0/+3i remember my high school teacher telling me this
- bluesman3535, on 05/01/2009, -0/+3No, it's not racism to compliment a group in general. If people of Asian decent gravitate toward certain skills and post the results for all to see on YouTube then great. Many Asian families I've observed in America buy a piano for the house and often require children to study it. However the tricky 'spiritual' aspect of music performed by any person of any race is that 1. 'feeling it' is just as important as 2.mechanical replication. Any person of any race can have any mixed ability of the two.
- vapn420, on 05/01/2009, -0/+3... are you serious right now?
- seltaeb4, on 05/01/2009, -0/+3It worked for the Beatles.
- Enterres, on 05/01/2009, -0/+3We're sort of like some of the derelict children in Africa i've heard studied about; since they were never given crayons or taught about colours they couldn't consciously differentiate between them.
Personally, when i picked up a guitar and started playing it eventually changed the way i hear things. - orsinoduke, on 05/01/2009, -0/+3Japanese are quite successful, but I don't see any reason why Korean should also be listed there. Forgive me, I can not find a single famous piece of Korean music. Chinese have lots excellent traditional classics, as well as Teresa Teng and Faye Wong.
- NickLee808, on 05/01/2009, -0/+3Mandarin was the first language I ever learned. Apparently, I had a knack for humming to tapes as a toddler. Then I went to preschool and started learning English.
Now I'm a writer who sings in a monotonous voice during karaoke. I still speak Mandarin, but with a really heavy English accent, apparently. - noumuon, on 05/01/2009, -0/+3a chinese talent contest in london surely makes you an expert on chinese music. surely.
- blaydcor, on 05/01/2009, -1/+4Why are you getting dug down? That's completely true
- doctressjulia, on 05/01/2009, -0/+3Mandarin has 4 tones, Cantonese has 12... not sure about Vietnamese... wo bu zhi dao.
- vpshockwave, on 05/01/2009, -0/+3Being good with pitches wouldn't help you play a piano. It's a matter of dexterity, rhythm, and music reading ability.
Unless you're looking to tune the piano yourself. - Bodhinature, on 05/01/2009, -0/+3The title isn't wrong. Vietnamese is a tonal language and so are the Chinese dialects (as is Thai, Laotian, Karen, Meo, Cambodian). This doesn't mean they are related. They are no more related than Russian is to Aleutian, both of which are highly inflected.
- Syric, on 05/01/2009, -1/+4"What makes mandarin so much different?"
http://tinyurl.com/ct3htd -
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