OT: New Restaurant in Phoenix

The suicide bomber also won't see their victims die.

Graham

Hello Jim,

Or doesn't soak in but freezes over.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com

One of the biggest difficulties in learning new letters or sounds is not learning to pronounce them, but learning to hear them properly. If you haven't heard the õ sound in Jõrg while you were a baby, you are always going to have difficulty with it.

We had Swiss friends visit Australia some years back with a small baby girl - 4-6 months I guess - and I swear that girl gurgled in *Swiss*. I had lived there for a couple of months prior to that and know the sounds - it was still quite remarkable to see this child, way before the age of speech, making the sounds required by her national language.

It's is perfectly normal to gurgle in your parents' language(s) - it's part of the learning process. There are more nerves leading from the brain *to* the ears, to train your ears, than there are nerves leading from the ears to the brain carrying sound information. By the time you are around six months old, most of the training is done - and by the time you are around 3 years old, you can't properly learn any new language sounds. If I remember the figures correctly, there are around

250 different sounds (vowels, consonants, and other sounds) used in languages around the world, with most languages using about 60 to 80 of them. If you haven't learned a language's sounds by the time you are around 3, you are never going to learn them properly. That's (partly) why as an adult it is extremely difficult to learn a language well enough to sound like a native, while it's easy for a small child - the problem is you can't learn to *hear* the language like a native.

So babies and toddlers making gurgling sounds are practising making the sounds for their language - the words come later. You can also hear other characteristics according to the language. For example, a Scandinavian baby will vary the pitch more than a British baby, and a middle-eastern baby will vary the volume more.

I learned all this at the City of Science and Industry in Paris (sorry - my French spelling is too bad to even attempt it) a few years ago. Amongst other things, they had a collection of recordings of babies from around the world, and it was fascinating to hear the differences and attempt to guess where they came from.

At first, like right after birth, they all start making all kinds of sounds, more or less at random. Their parents respond to the ones that sound to them like speech sounds, and their reaction reinforces the desire to repeat the "right" sounds, to get more of that reaction, kind of. :-)

So, if there are two or three languages going around in a house, the kid will learn all three simultaneously. :-)

Cheers! Rich

Hello David,

Its actually Jörg :-)

I have heard that the cut-off time for learning another language without keeping an accent is around 8 years of age. This was corroborated by kids of engineers I worked with. I remember two girls about 5 and 6 years old. They were initially unhappy because they couldn't communicate with any other kid. After a year they spoke like a native. Their parents didn't, even years later. These kids were already bi-lingual when they came so I guess now they are "tri-lingual".

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com

Hello Rich,

And that can include the language their parents had intended to be secret, where they felt sure the kids wouldn't understand ;-)

Heck, even our dogs understand two languages by now. Of course, only the important stuff like "would you like a treat?", "let's go for a walk", "where's the leash?" and so on.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com

In message , dated Tue, 12 Sep 2006, David Brown writes

I think there might be QUITE a problem in pronouncing that, under any circumstances!

Jörg, not Jðrg.

--
OOO - Own Opinions Only. Try www.jmwa.demon.co.uk and www.isce.org.uk
There are benefits from being irrational - just ask the square root of 2.
John Woodgate, J M Woodgate and Associates, Rayleigh, Essex UK

Republican In Name Only Y'know--the kind who oppose NeoCons and think that *Borrow and Spend* is a BAD idea.

I've been chuckling at your posts but haven't had anything of significance to add to any. It's good to see you back.

McCain will say anything that causes you to vote for him.

...Jim Thompson

-- | James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | | | E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat | |

| 1962 | I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Thank you.

--
OOO - Own Opinions Only. Try www.jmwa.demon.co.uk and www.isce.org.uk
There are benefits from being irrational - just ask the square root of 2.
John Woodgate, J M Woodgate and Associates, Rayleigh, Essex UK

In message , dated Tue, 12 Sep 2006, Joerg writes

In fact, there are two sorts of people. One adapts very quickly, even as an adult, to a new language environment, but imperfectly if adult, while the other keeps a strong 'foreign' accent for decades. There may be some examples among your friends.

I remember two elderly women in a pub, conversing in impeccable BBC English, but ordering Löwenbräu with perfect German pronunciation, prompting my German friend to talk to them for 15 minutes in German, forgetting his turn to buy beer! He had been in UK for around 40 years and you would have no trouble at all in placing him as German.

--
OOO - Own Opinions Only. Try www.jmwa.demon.co.uk and www.isce.org.uk
There are benefits from being irrational - just ask the square root of 2.
John Woodgate, J M Woodgate and Associates, Rayleigh, Essex UK

I thought the "oe" in your name was pronounced like this: Joutstandingengineerrg. :-)

Ed

I disagree. I never heard it as a baby afaik but i have no trouble at all with it.

The real problem is ppl who are lazy about learning languages.

Graham

I read a thing in the pronunciation guide of a dictionary once, many years ago, and I remember the way they described the umlauted o. The trick was to put your lips in the form to make the 'o' sound, but form your tongue as if you were about to make the 'a' sound. Similarly, with an umlauted u, which I think is like ue or something, you purse your lips to make an 'oo', but put your tongue in position for 'ee'.

Works for me! :-)

Cheers! Rich

I don't think I'd ever be able to learn that African clicking sound.

Thanks, Rich

Hello John,

I am probably in the first group since people say my accent is light, unlike Ahnold's :-)

My English has become pretty mushy and influenced by having teachers from the south and from Australia, Canadians, staying in Scotland and so on. But what really floored me was when I called HP in California, someone with a Bavarian accent picked up and told me point-blank that I must have grown up in the Ruhr area in Germany (which is true).

Amazing. I just met a guy at the Borders book store. He had learned German on his own here in the US and spoke it nearly accent-free. I really thought he was German.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com

Hello Ed,

Thanks for the kudos. Although I guess my wife won't think so after our X-10 system begins to fall apart. Not my fault but I was the guy who installed it :-(

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com