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Accents and Colours | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 9 of 16 12 November 2014 at 1:49am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I simply find the male-female colour chart insulting in its gross oversimplification. If somebody made a chart with fifty car makes with fifty names on the male side and "big car" - "small car" on the female side then the author would probably get sued for sexism. Ironically that's more or less my level at car science, whereas I had no problems in recognizing not only all the colours on the chart, but also all their names (although I haven't had any reason to learn exactly what for instance "spindrift" looks like). To talk about colours you need some fixed reference points. The authors of that silly page may have cosmetics and textile colours as their reference frame, where I use artists' colors and my felt pens as references, but I'm fairly convinced that my system is just as efficient when it comes to categorizing colours in my mind. The difference could be that some women babble more about cosmetics and clothes than I do, but as long as they don't try to involve me in those discussions that's OK.
There is however one real fact that may have inspired this discussion, namely that males have more red-green colourblinds (daltonism) because they only have the gene for red in one copy on one X chromosome, whereas women have two X genes and only need to have 'good' genes on one of them. And even where there isn't a complete loss of the ability to separate red and green there may be a group of males with impaired colour vision. But even one sole functioning gene is enough to make the bearer capable of separating all the colours on the chart. In contrast the tetrachromate discussion is deeply interesting, and if a fourth kind of cone is getting a foothold among humans then it is one of the most farreaching developments in human anatomy since Homo sapiens first appeared. However it has to be said that even if there are persons - mostly female - with four kinds of cone it doesn't mean that women without such cones are blessed with an exceptional color discrimination ability. And even less that four kinds of cones are necessary to learn the colour names on the chart. And what has this to do with the ability to hear and imitate sounds from different languages? Well, not much I fear. PS: I found a funny colour discrimation test here (I got 15, which is OK). Edited by Iversen on 12 November 2014 at 2:28am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Alphathon Groupie Scotland Joined 4179 days ago 60 posts - 104 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Scottish Gaelic | Message 10 of 16 12 November 2014 at 4:52am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Agreed, although I suspect being driven into obscurity is more likely than being sued.
I can easily distinguish all the colours too, although I don't recognise all the names (and many I only recognise by analogy rather than as actual colour names - for example if someone used cayenne as a colour name I'd know roughly what they meant, but might use a different name/analogy myself). I also don't recognise some of them in the sense of one sovereign state (not) recognising another (e.g. that is not the colour of a strawberry and if spring is green then I'm pretty sure it isn't that green). I work with both computer graphics and photos for a living so TBH I'd probably be more likely to recognise them by their RGB number codes than some of those names anyway. Incidentally, I had no idea what spindrift was, colour or otherwise, and had to look it up.
I think the point was that even though everyone (ostensibly) sees the same colours, their perception of those colours varies (perhaps something like qualia), presumably because they have either been trained to distinguish them (either explicitly or by their environment) or have an innate ability to do so. The same is true for recognition of accents and the associated sounds. Reproduction is another matter entirely. Probably a closer analogue would be musical ability, but unfortunately it is far more difficult to compare (if only because colours are constantly all around us and one can't draw pictures of music). On a more general level it seems that some people notice details where others do not, which thereby makes learning things like sounds and colour names easier.
It's difficult to tell, but that seems fairly good to me. When I took the test, it said the highest score for my age range was 4970, so I'm not sure what the scale or the maximum score is. I scored 0 (perfect), but I do wonder how much of your score is down to your monitor. As I need it for work I have a high quality and, more importantly, properly calibrated monitor; if you don't it's likely to skew the results at least a little. Given that X-Rite actually make monitor calibration equipment I'm surprised they didn't say that more prominently themselves. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 11 of 16 12 November 2014 at 5:23am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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FWIW I think most feminists would agree that the colour chart is quite sexist. It's an example of how subtle, non-universal differences between the genders get exaggerated and blown out of proportion nowadays.
(I personally interpret the graphic as "lol, women care too much about cosmetics/clothes/small differences between the colours", but as I said that's because most of these colour names are obscure to me, although I do use many other colour names. And I think the chart is sexist regardless of which gender it makes fun of) Edited by Serpent on 12 November 2014 at 5:27am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| chiara-sai Triglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 3707 days ago 54 posts - 146 votes Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2, French Studies: German, Japanese | Message 12 of 16 12 November 2014 at 8:18am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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The colour chart is obviously exaggerated, if true at all.
I don’t think I’m particularly good at distinguishing colours, but not bad either, I’m probably average. I might use slightly more colour terms than the average person (I never call beige “brown, or fuchsia “pink”), but not to any large extent and I’ve probably picked it up from my mother. I am awful with accents. I simply cannot imitate people’s speech at all. If it weren’t for the IPA my accent would be disastrous. I’m also quite bad at understanding speech, even in my native language, I suspect I might have a mild form of auditory processing disorder. Edited by chiara-sai on 12 November 2014 at 8:18am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4443 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 13 of 16 12 November 2014 at 8:32am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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There are people who may not know how to speak foreign languages but can distinguish and imitate other foreign
accents. Many movie actors & comedians do occasionally imitate other accents for a good laugh including the English actor Peter Sellers who became the Indian actor in "The Party". The comedian Russell Peters from Canada imitated Chinese & Indian accents in his comedy gigs. There are people who speak other languages with a hint of their native accent. And there are singers like David Bowie & Elton John from England who spend a lot of time in America. They can sing like an American but when they talk, their English accent can be heard. Do we assume that age is a major factor when it comes to imitating accents or are there other factors? I know people who came to Canada from other countries at a young age. Their mother-tongue is totally different from English but they picked up the language in a short time without any noticeable accent. Part of the equation is that they listened to Pop music on radio and did a lot of sing-along. The older generation prefer to listen to Classical music with no words & phrases to imitate. The other factor is socialization. People who socialize with other native- speakers have an easier time learning to speak the language. Personally I play music with a local band. Being someone with a near perfect pitch, I can tell the difference between an A-flat, A & A-sharp. As a musician I trained my ears to listen to different pitches. And there are songs I'd hear a few times and pick up the melody... including the old Japanese Pop song: "Sukiyaki" later sang by the American group "A Taste of Honey" (melody only but not the lyrics). Another song I learned to play on a piano keyboard recently was "The Moon Represents My Heart" from the 1970s as sang by the Taiwanese singer Teresa Teng. I don't remember ever hearing the song in my childhood years. I can play a keyboard but can't sing in tune. I think learning to play music on an instrument or sing is along the same line as learning foreign languages although many language learners are not into playing music. The ones who are successful tend to be those who listen very well. Edited by shk00design on 12 November 2014 at 8:35am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4532 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 14 of 16 12 November 2014 at 9:43am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Just to be clear: ONLY women can be tetrachromatic. It's just a freak of biology that the genes for the cones are on the X-chromosome, so only women with two X-chromosomes have the possibility of having both L-cones. But as you say, most women only have one of the L-cones, and so most women see EXACTLY the same colors as tri-chromatic men. Keep in mind that the peak sensitivity between the L and M cones is about 20-30 nanometers, whereas the peak sensitivity between L1 and L2 cones is only about 2-3 nm. So while being tetrachromatic allows you to divide up the color space more finely, it's no where near as extreme as the difference between color-blindness and normal trichromatic vision. There have been amazing develops over the last couple of years in the ability to insert genes very precisely into cells (this may well lead to a cure for AIDS in the next few years). Using the same general techniques it should be possible to modify the cones genes very precisely. Perhaps giving our future selves an optimised form of tetra- (or even quintachromatic, sexchromatic etc) color vision. But keep in mind that the cones are only the external sensors. You still need software to run the program to "see" the colors. The debate previously was not whether people have two L cone classes, but whether the brain could use this information. Apparently it can, but its not clear if it does this in an optimal way, or in the same fashion it handles trichromatic vision. Edited by patrickwilken on 12 November 2014 at 9:46am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5206 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 15 of 16 12 November 2014 at 11:19am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Like chiara-sai I'm also awful with accents and find it impossible to imitate people's speech, be it foreign pronunciation or just, say, imitating a friend's voice to make fun of them. I'm envious of people who can imitate accents despite having never studied them, as it would obviously be a great skill to have as a language learner and I struggle to do it even after months of focused practice and studying several phonetics books. However, I am good at understanding speech and I find listening comprehension relatively easy, so for me I don't think it's about auditory processing. I pick up the message, just not how it's delivered. I'm a musician too, and recognising pitches and intervals is a big difficulty for me. It's something I work on and I'm better than I used to be, but some people seem to just be able to do it naturally. I can't help but see the parallel with pronunciation/accent in languages. It seems like a very similar skill; I'd speculate even the same or closely related, and improving one's musical ear might well also improve one's ear for accents or vice versa. I've actually heard people who are good at accents complain that it can be a problem because target-language speakers get a falsely high impression of their skills and don't cut them the same slack that they would for someone who's more obviously a learner. Personally it seems like a first-world problem and I'd prefer it to the opposite that I experience, where people assume that my level is much lower than it is because of the first impression from my bad accent and I then have to prove otherwise! 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 16 of 16 12 November 2014 at 4:08pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I don't think I'm bad at perceiving and imitating foreign accents, but I rarely hear most languages from a living person, and when I do hear them the speakers may represent quite different dialects, and my impression gets blurred. Edited by Iversen on 12 November 2014 at 4:09pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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