krtek Groupie United States Joined 7112 days ago 46 posts - 50 votes Speaks: Mandarin* Studies: English, Italian, Cantonese
| Message 1 of 62 09 September 2007 at 8:39pm | IP Logged |
I have always thought that it is almost impossible for an adult learner to achieve native fluency of a foreign
language. But this guy changed my mind:
Video
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
His Mandarin Chinese is better than many native speakers', although with Beijing accent. It's very natural and
clean, without any trace of "foreigner".
Even though this is encouraging to me, I was still wondering if everyone could do the same thing. Maybe it is a
natural talent not everyone has.
Edited by krtek on 14 April 2010 at 3:48am
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krtek Groupie United States Joined 7112 days ago 46 posts - 50 votes Speaks: Mandarin* Studies: English, Italian, Cantonese
| Message 2 of 62 10 September 2007 at 1:13am | IP Logged |
Just found out: his name is Julien Gaudfroy.
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maxb Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 7185 days ago 536 posts - 589 votes 7 sounds Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Mandarin
| Message 3 of 62 10 September 2007 at 4:10am | IP Logged |
In the program they mentioned that he used to be a musician. I think that could be one of the reasons as to why his pronounciation is so good. However I still believe that almost anyone can get a very good pronunciation in a foreign language. It is very much a matter of effort.
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Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6770 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek
| Message 4 of 62 10 September 2007 at 8:01am | IP Logged |
I think knowing how to play an instrument certainly helps with language acquisition. One's sense of rhythm and tone become more finely tuned. The connections you make in your brain learning one skill so often assist in another.
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Jee Senior Member Australia Joined 6311 days ago 105 posts - 105 votes Studies: English
| Message 5 of 62 10 September 2007 at 8:37am | IP Logged |
Unbelievable,how could he speak mandarin so perfect ,much clearly than me as a native speaker
Actually,his mandarin is with a little bit Beijing style
I trust that playing instruments is really helpful for learning languages,especially for tonal languages
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krtek Groupie United States Joined 7112 days ago 46 posts - 50 votes Speaks: Mandarin* Studies: English, Italian, Cantonese
| Message 6 of 62 10 September 2007 at 10:06am | IP Logged |
Interestingly, there seems to be a consensus that being a musician helps language acquisition. That's news to me. Good to know.
maxb wrote:
In the program they mentioned that he used to be a musician. I think that could be one of the reasons as to why his pronounciation is so good. However I still believe that almost anyone can get a very good pronunciation in a foreign language. It is very much a matter of effort. |
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Edited by krtek on 10 September 2007 at 10:23am
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jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6911 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map
| Message 7 of 62 10 September 2007 at 1:32pm | IP Logged |
The link doesn't work for me. I'm directed to a Flash player which seems to load forever. I'm using IE 6.0/XP.
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kinoko Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 6638 days ago 103 posts - 109 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, Japanese, Spanish Studies: German
| Message 8 of 62 10 September 2007 at 10:47pm | IP Logged |
I am always a bit skeptical when it comes to foreigners learning to speak a language very distant from their mother tongue (not the case of Spanish Italian for example, but German Chinese) in their adulthood. I'm not saying it can't be done, but still...
Thus I'm very curious. Does he speak about his experience with Chinese or does anyone here knows his story? I mean, he could have grown up in China going to a Chinese junior high school, or be bilingual for some other reason. In that case it would be pretty much understandable that he can speak like a native.
But being a professional musician and devoting all his time to music, going to China after receiving his formal education somewhere else and learning to speak like a native from zero only because he has a refined acustic sense (if that is the case), sorry guys but I don't believe in magic when it comes to language learning. There must be another reason why he can speak Chinese like a native.
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