#tonallanguages — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #tonallanguages, aggregated by home.social.
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Question for #linguistics and #language learning experts about #tonalLanguages:
I’m learning #Mandarin #Chinese (informally, slowly, badly), and I have trouble with the 4 tones—but not the usual trouble. I’m a musician, and I can hear, recognize, and produce the tones no problem. What I can’t do well is remember them (which tone for each word). When I learn a word, my English-wired brain just discards this information, even though I fully understand its importance. Is this common?
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A global study that compared the melodic and rhythmic abilities of almost half a million people speaking 54 different languages found that tonal speakers are better able to discern between subtly different melodies, while non-tonal speakers are better able to tell whether a rhythm is beating in time with the music. The researchers report April 26 in the journal #CurrentBiology