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Are women voices easier to understand? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Sir Nigel Senior Member United States Joined 7115 days ago 1126 posts - 1102 votes  2 sounds | Message 17 of 24 23 October 2006 at 7:31am | IP Logged | ||
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Do you mean that coarse-type element with some men's voices?
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| Andy_Liu Triglot Senior Member Hong Kong leibby.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6797 days ago 255 posts - 257 votes Speaks: Mandarin, Cantonese*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 18 of 24 23 October 2006 at 9:20am | IP Logged | ||
Same for my native language. This hasn't much to do with specific languages, but rather biological differences. In fact, social factors also contribute to this. Men tend to act more, not talk. I am a guy and I feel I just can't talk so clearly than any sort of females around me - I'm talkative though, but more often in contexts where I can go into lengthy discussions with others. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| alcina Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6708 days ago 51 posts - 54 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Italian | Message 19 of 24 23 October 2006 at 12:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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Can't say I've personally noticed being able to understand women better
than men per se. Certainly some people are easier to understand than others, but I'm not sure I've experienced this as a gender thing. I have one thing to throw into the pot though for what it's worth...from my observations as a singer it's not just pitch that's different between men's and women's voices. In reality the "average" pitch difference isn't an octave as is commonly assumed, but only about a 5th (though harmonics are a whole different kettle of fish!). What *is* different between the genders is that women tend to speak at the bottom of their vocal range (in "chest" range if you're talking about singing, somewhere around A below middle C) whereas men tend to speak in the middle of their vocal range (in the "mid" range, somewhere around the C an octave below middle C). Women can't sing much lower than they speak, but men invariably can by an octave or so! As far as "pitch" is concerned men ought to be able to project better as it's easier to project in mid-voice/head-voice than it is in chest (no-one naturally speaks in head-voice, but it is used to great effect when screaming...or singing coluratura roles..they're much the same thing! :) ). But it seems that experience on the boards here is that the whole they don't. Maybe it's a social thing: men feel they ought to speak more deeply and so they artifically lower their voice, sometimes speaking under the voice where the vocal chords are not brought together fully and so the sound isn't as focussed (deliberately or accidentally mumbling in the process) - you hear it a lot with modern Hollywood actors: compare Brad Pitt with Stewart Granger...vocally that is! Just my observations... Alcina 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hagen Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6971 days ago 171 posts - 179 votes 6 sounds Speaks: German*, English, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 20 of 24 24 October 2006 at 2:28am | IP Logged | ||
It might just be that the harmonics are an important point here. After all they are a big part of what makes us understand speech sounds. The fundamental frequency is largely irrelevant, by the way. (In normal telephone conversation it's often not transmitted anyway.) I seem to remember that the formant of the vowel /i/ (which at around 3200 Hz is the highest one) is crucial for far-carrying sounds, though. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| puellanivis Pentaglot Newbie United States Joined 6622 days ago 11 posts - 12 votes 3 sounds Speaks: English*, GermanC1, Swedish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Latin, Mandarin, French | Message 21 of 24 24 October 2006 at 12:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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:) Well, here's something I have a lot of knowledge about.
There is nothing really in the frequency that makes female voices clearer and more understandable than a male. The low range of female voices actually overlap significantly the upper male voice range. The range of both that is unobtainable by the other is at most only a half an octave. The significant difference is that females annunciate more than males, and use less contractions, shortenings, and shortcuts in speech. In fact, this is typically found in all people who speak a language outside of the power-role for that society. A Scot speaking The Queen's English and an African-American speaking American Standard will both exhibit the same behavior. Females also tend to use a greater range of their voice, thus going from higher to lower pitches to mark parts of a sentence. This is why they typically sound more "sing-song" than males. Overall, the greatest impact on the understandability is likely exclusively due to the clearer annunciation. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| CaoMei513 Senior Member United States Joined 6856 days ago 110 posts - 113 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Korean | Message 22 of 24 06 November 2006 at 3:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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well, I do agree that it seems a female voice is easier to understand. Plus it sounds better, especially when it comes to Mandarin :) But I may just be saying this because I am female myself...
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| sumabeast Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6937 days ago 212 posts - 220 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written) | Message 23 of 24 06 November 2006 at 4:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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OK my experience with Arabic was the exact opposite.
studying in the middle east, due to custom and religious norms a man would not typically have access to converse with a woman like this. so most of my language exposure and practice was with men. and as a result the few times I did converse briefly with women I found it hard to understand them. to me it was that the softer voice made it harder to hear some sounds, also cultural sensibilities were at play in that conversation was at some distance and rarely face to face with eye contact. so I did not have the added help of reading the face to help with communication and for a beginner/intermediate learner this can be crucial sometimes. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sumabeast Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6937 days ago 212 posts - 220 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written) | Message 24 of 24 06 November 2006 at 4:10pm | IP Logged | ||
I agree with this. but don't quite get what you mean "power-role for that society"? are you saying that a scottsman speaking QE will speak more clearly that an English man? or AA speaking standard American English uses less shortenings that say an anglo-American? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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