Re: [TUHS] Mushi and Bagu

I don't think Westerners are actually tone deaf as such. It's basically that we didn't exercise our ability to tell those tones apart when we were acquiring language, so we more or less lost the opportunity to learn it when we could. Although it can be learnt later, something that happens as a very natural process during language aquisition, becomes a very artificial process involving MONTHS or YEARS in the lab listening to tapes and testing oneself and so on. Acquiring tones is somewhat similar to having perfect pitch in music. There are courses out there that claim to teach you perfect pitch. And, I believe it CAN be learnt, but it is an extraordinary amount of work and will probably slide backwards if not maintained. Anyway, I still find the phenomenon really strange and intriguing. My wife is Vietnamese and I was at her relatives' house just tonight. I spoke a little Vietnamese to her aunt and she didn't understand me at all (as usual). It's because what sounds to us identical, sounds to her like a completely different word -- so much so, that her brain doesn't even register any similarity. cheers, Nick PS OT sorry. On Thu, Feb 16, 2017 at 8:36 PM, <jsteve(a)superglobalmegacorp.com> wrote: