We have all heard those jokes about Chinese people mixing up L and R sounds while speaking English. What causes this? Is it related to the vocals of Chinese language and the way they speak their own language?
In: Other
At about age 10 your brain starts to lose its ability to learn to both hear and form new language sounds, and almost completely loses it by the time you’re 12.
If your native language doesn’t have a particular letter sound and you don’t learn it in language classes before you’re ~12 you often have to go to a lot of effort to train your brain to be able to either differentiate or form the sound.
What often happens instead is your brain substitutes in a close sound (the L an R are fairly close, when you don’t learn them as a child, similar B and P / D and T (voiced/unvoiced) in English are very similar and hard to tell apart when not learned while young.
You’ll find the same thing if you try to speak a language that includes sounds that are not in your own native language – you’ll think you’re getting it right and can’t understand why your replication isn’t understood, it’s because you think you’re saying the sounds all right but are miles off for some of them.
Latest Answers