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Originally Posted by omk3
I did listen to the Danish words though, and if the software works as it should, I am shocked and fascinated by "rødgrød med fløde" and whoever manages to pronounce it! Wow!
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i just did the same and i have new respect for danish speakers !!
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This made me remember an interesting study that I had watched in a documentary, and I managed to find a relevant article. Experiments have shown that as babies we can recognise all the little nuances in sound and differentiate between them. We lose however this ability very early on: As we are getting better and better in our native language's sounds, we start ignoring the rest.
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Originally Posted by FlorenceArt
I do think that hearing plays a big part. I am not especially interested in music but I can recognize notes well (for a musically illiterate person). I also have pretty good hearing, and I can hear languages more easily than some.
But I'm sure there are also other factors, both genetic and depending on the environment you grew up in.
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very interesting study, i had never heard about that. however, it does explain perhaps why children who grow up in a bilingual (or more) household tend to learn languages much more easily than children who didn't ; they are exposed to a larger variety of sounds so their brains (and ears) are used to the idea that there are more sounds available in the world than are represented in their native language. i think knowing this is possible (even on a subconscious level) is probably an important first step towards being able to recognise and reproduce the sounds.
i would not personally be surprised if the same parts of the brain responsible for musical aptitude were responsible for aural comprehension of different sounds and languages, although i've also heard that music and math aptitudes tend to go together, and i would think that mathematics and linguistics are somewhat different. but maybe they're not, after all...