Gingerninja Wrote:An accent is something you'll pick up just hanging around people with that accent once your good enough that your not actively "studying" and are just doing it. People change how they speak to match those around them to fit it, its an unconscious social thing.

nadiatims Wrote:Pitch accent starts to take care of itself once your level gets high enough. […] The only way to imitate any accent is to have heard it enough to actually recognise all the subtleties and then be able to recognise and self correct your errors, it doesn't require any special training.

First of all, people do not just pick up accents because they happen to be around others. There are endless examples of people moving to a country and still having a strong accent, even decades after living there. Input alone is NOT sufficient.

Same applies to pitch accent. Obviously, pitch accent improves when your level is high enough, but it doesn’t just “take care of itself”. If you listen to Khatzumoto’s videos, you can hear how there are plenty of pitch errors, even on extremely common words like “iru” – apparently, despite the high level of fluency this guy has reached, his pitch hasn’t just corrected itself. Because it doesn’t work like that.

Now, if your definition of accent is “speaking clearly enough to be understood”, then we’re fine. If it means trying to attain a near-native accent, then that’s quite another story. The latter doesn’t just happen on its own because you have lots of input, and it obviously doesn’t just take care of itself.

vgambit Wrote:I'm tempted to find the article about the man who spent the first 25+ years of his life as a mute, and became a fluent speaker the moment he underwent a surgery that gave him the ability to move his vocal cords, ...

If a child has not learned language in the first few years of his life, he is unlikely to ever become a successful speaker at all. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_period) Moreover, if a child had learned sign language instead, it's highly unlikely that regaining the use of his vocal cords would make his a fluent English speaker; first, English would be his second language, and second, training all his muscle (tongue, throat, soft palate, etc.) would take a long time. I'd be curious to see what your articles has to say, but until we can see it and have established the facts to be true, it doesn't constitute evidence of a so-called silent period.

vgambit Wrote:...but I'm not that obsessed with attempting to prove that I'm right and you're wrong. We both have our opinions. I stand by my reasoning.

If a person were not knowledgeable or critical enough to determine whether or not your statements had any value, they might just take your word for it. But you are giving authoritative advice based on misconceptions. The silent period idea is nothing but thin air -- the degree with which you believe in it or the amount of faith you put in it does not make it less so.

AlexandreC Wrote:First of all, people do not just pick up accents because they happen to be around others. There are endless examples of people moving to a country and still having a strong accent, even decades after living there. Input alone is NOT sufficient.

This happens when people 'ghettoise' themselves in a non-native language bubble. Perhaps they had been speaking the language as a lingua franca with other non-natives for years in their home country, or they learned from non-natives. Then when they move to the country their level of exposure to the native language spoken by natives doesn't necessarily increase substantially enough. They work as a programmer or taxi driver all day and then go home to their non-native wife and kids. Maybe their level was never high enough in the first place and they found it hard to assimilate and make native friends or they just don't spend much time socialising and/or watching TV. They have other hobbies and the level they have reached is good enough for their purposes and they don't see any need to increase their exposure to native speech in order to improve.

In terms of a "silent period" I think it's a matter of personal choice. I don't see the need for a heated debate about it.

I don't think it's useful to advocate either way that you MUST be silent in the beginning or you MUST talk right from the beginning. I've seen people who spoke straight from the start who are fluent and I myself spent a whole year in silence and can speak fluently. It does not have to change the outcome of your language learning efforts. Will it affect your ability in some way? Sure, everything you do will affect your ability in some way. Does it have to be negative? Not necessarily. Could it be negative? Possibly. That goes for both sides of the argument.

For me personally I was silent because I had no one to talk to. I didn't live in Japan and I was very content to engage in native media and just soak it up. I was absorbed in the language and I was happy with that. When it came time I felt I wanted to speak I simply seeked conversation partners out.

This time for Korean I'm doing the same thing. I feel it worked for me with Japanese so Korean should be no different. Also, right now even though I can string together some VERY VERY basic sentences I still can't really understand the reply so I feel my energy is best focused on learning to understand it to a higher degree. I know I could learn to understand it through attempting to have conversations with people. That just isn't my personal style. Which brings me to my point... it's a matter of how you feel about it.

Tzadeck Wrote:As for the 'silent period' debate, my opinion is that it is way better to start talking right away. I'm on my fourth year of JET, so I've seen maybe 60 people come and go among the high school teachers in Kyoto. The people who get really good at Japanese in a short amount of time are the people who talk a lot, right from the get-go. In fact, of the people who hadn't studied Japanese before they came, the only people who get any good are the people who talk a lot. So mostly only the people with outgoing personalities get any good. (Of course, people who were already studying are a different story because they're generally quite committed to learning it).

Do the people who don't talk much socialize at all with Japanese people? Or are they kind of living in these bubbles we've talked about? I don't know what it's like, but I can imagine that if you're on something like the JET program, you don't need Japanese for your work, you've got lots of other foreigner friends to spend time with, and it's easy to spend the rest of your own free time doing stuff like browsing the English internet.

The ones who do talk obviously have the right attitude to living in a foreign country, because by socializing they connect to the all Japanese environment they have at their disposal. It doesn't have to be the fact that they speak, but that they plug in. People who don't do this can spend years in another country without picking up the spoken language.

Perhaps some are thinking that talking equals socializing. That's one thing if you're living in Japan, but for us who don't it's a different matter.

Nagareboshi Wrote:This is a description of steps and resources but no method. What is your method exactly? How did you learn, what was working for you that you kept doing all the way, what didn't? Did you build on existing material, e.g. flash-cards, going Kana - RTK - supplement the deck with readings - vocabulary - sentences? Or did you use random material that seemed right for you? Why did certain methods work for you while others didn't? How were you structuring your daily life around learning? How much time have you spent? What have you done differently to all the rest of us that makes your method unique and worth to follow? How did you learn with textbooks? Tell me more about your textbooks, how were you learning with them, how were you doing the exercises, and what else did you do with them?

You're asking for instructions that are way more granular than needed. I followed the instructions listed in each book. I supplemented the learning process with Anki. That's pretty much it.

Nagareboshi Wrote:The reason I ask is, that anybody can come up with the idea to play games, work with some textbooks, use Anki etc. The interesting part is how people work with certain materials, software, ... and what makes those methods stand out. When someone on here is writing about their methods, they usually describe exactly what they were doing, and how it helped them getting their skills to an advanced levels. From reading what they did, what and how it worked, how and in what way they were profiting from it, another learner can decide to borrow and assmilate them.

This is the reason why I ask so many questions about your method, and I hope you will answer them.

Stand out? I already mentioned something about no gimmicks. It's "just" plain-Jane studying.

Nagareboshi Wrote:When I read books, in languages that I know, I tend to move my lips and voice the words in my head. I don't do this with Japanese, at least not yet. I know that it will happen, and I am looking forward to it.

That's called subvocalization, and all it does is slow down the reading process.

kainzero Wrote:Developing a proper accent requires a lot of training and an acute attention to detail. I still don't know the difference over when to use a nasal が and a non-nasal が。 Hell, I didn't even know it existed until someone brought it up on this board. Unless I'm training specifically to differentiate between 橋、箸、and 端、(and even in different dialects they have different pitches!) it'll be difficult to develop the "native" accent. Even worse if your input varies between standard and Kansai-ben and you are unaware of the differences.

Things like nasal vs non-nasal pronunciation and other such subtleties are learned implicitly by simply hearing it. I knew there was a difference because I've heard it said both ways. I don't know when to say it because I haven't heard it enough, and don't yet have enough comprehension of the language.

As far as dialect, that's irrelevant. If it becomes an issue, I'll deal with it. Until then, I don't care if I sound like I'm from Kansai, Tokyo, or Osaka. As long as I sound like I'm from Japan.

kainzero Wrote:Why even bother learning how to speak Japanese then, if you can be understood for anything you will ever do?

Wow. You're right. I have no reason to learn Japanese, because I'll never have to actually use it. I guess I'll stop studying now. Thanks for the advice.

@TwoMoreCharacters: =D

@Gingerninja:
The only accent I "pick up" will be from whatever media I listen to. I'm hoping that my media will be so varied that I won't end up sounding like the Japanese equivalent of a hillbilly or whatever, but I'm not trying to get a particular accent.

AlexandreC Wrote:If a child has not learned language in the first few years of his life, he is unlikely to ever become a successful speaker at all. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_period) Moreover, if a child had learned sign language instead, it's highly unlikely that regaining the use of his vocal cords would make his a fluent English speaker; first, English would be his second language, and second, training all his muscle (tongue, throat, soft palate, etc.) would take a long time. I'd be curious to see what your articles has to say, but until we can see it and have established the facts to be true, it doesn't constitute evidence of a so-called silent period.

I read the article, so I know it's true. I don't care whether you believe me or not. If you want the truth, find it yourself.

AlexandreC Wrote:

vgambit Wrote:...but I'm not that obsessed with attempting to prove that I'm right and you're wrong. We both have our opinions. I stand by my reasoning.

If a person were not knowledgeable or critical enough to determine whether or not your statements had any value, they might just take your word for it. But you are giving authoritative advice based on misconceptions. The silent period idea is nothing but thin air -- the degree with which you believe in it or the amount of faith you put in it does not make it less so.

TwoMoreCharacters pasted a number of links here by people far more qualified to speak on the matter than you or I that support my apparently misconception-based advice.

I don’t think having a bad accent is really a bad thing. I think there is a difference between talking in a wrong way (bad sentence formation, etc.) and having a non-native accent. I consider myself pretty fluent in English, but I know my accent isn't good.

I had the opportunity to travel some years ago to USA and UK, and I didn't have any problem with my accent or people who wouldn't understand me. And I talked a lot during that trip in English because all my cousins who live there only talk in English and they don't know any Spanish at all.

And I mean, there are a lot of accents you can get when learning a language and I don't think anyone of them is wrong. It’s like, there is a British accent and an American accent, but you can still understand both of them.

For the people that have mention that having lots of input is what can 'fix' the accent, I don't think that is necessarily true. All the TV shows I watch are in English, and I had listened to it since I was a child, but that doesn’t mean I have a perfect accent. I think it is something that depends on each person. I had an uncle and an aunt that move to USA when they were young (20 something) and they have perfect American accent.

For the silent period, i think it depends on what you want to do with the language. I don’t really talk in Japanese, because I don’t se the necessity right now. I know that when I get better in understanding I will be able to write and talk in a better way. Right now my objective is to understand anime, manga and videogames.

mezbup Wrote:I know I could learn to understand it through attempting to have conversations with people. That just isn't my personal style. Which brings me to my point... it's a matter of how you feel about it.

That's the idea I'm really trying to get through to people. Do what you want. That's what I'm doing. I just decided to share it.

vgambit Wrote:

mezbup Wrote:I know I could learn to understand it through attempting to have conversations with people. That just isn't my personal style. Which brings me to my point... it's a matter of how you feel about it.

That's the idea I'm really trying to get through to people. Do what you want. That's what I'm doing. I just decided to share it.

If we should all do whatever we want and it all has equal value, I don't much see the point in sharing your own view, let alone claiming it's the right way.

AlexandreC Wrote:

vgambit Wrote:

mezbup Wrote:I know I could learn to understand it through attempting to have conversations with people. That just isn't my personal style. Which brings me to my point... it's a matter of how you feel about it.

That's the idea I'm really trying to get through to people. Do what you want. That's what I'm doing. I just decided to share it.

If we should all do whatever we want and it all has equal value, I don't much see the point in sharing your own view, let alone claiming it's the right way.

The topic wasn't started by vgambit. I view everyone view on learning Japanese important, with no one's view more valuable than anyone's else. We are all students of Japanese language, and from what I can see none of us are experts in teaching Japanese.

Everyone's opinion is valuable.

vgambit Wrote:TwoMoreCharacters pasted a number of links here by people far more qualified to speak on the matter than you or I that support my apparently misconception-based advice.

I wouldn't argue with people who say that you may choose to speak whenever you want or feel comfortable doing it (like Steve -- even though he is obvsiously a great talker and finds enjoyment in speaking early on if the opportunity arises). After all, different people have different objectives and some, like you, don't put much weight or value on speaking. This is fine, but from this perspective, it's surprising that you would provide advice on how to speak better.

Your claim was specifically that speaking too early could cause a bad accent. That's what I have a problem with. Reading that, some people may conclude that they should refrain from speaking, or they could risk irreparable damage. That's obviously not the case! Did you perhaps mean to say that there is no obligation to speak from the onset?

In each of the 12 languages I've studied, speaking was always my priority and I've always made every effort to start saying as much as I could right from the onset. In so doing, I've always reached better results than the other students around me who spoke little or not at all. This has also always been my approach when teaching languages and I've never seen a case of irreparable bad accent. Let's not scare people here.

Omoishinji Wrote:I view everyone view on learning Japanese important, with no one's view more valuable than anyone's else. [...]
Everyone's opinion is valuable.

Valuable, yes. Equally valuable, no.

.

caivano Wrote:Sounds like you need to rethink your idea of a 'native' accent

hence the quotes in "native" accent!
it's hard to compare accents in English because it's used all over the world. for instance, until i watched a video with all the British accents, i had no idea they existed, although i heard a few them before. and some of us adjust to the accents without noticing either.

i just watched an obviously scripted interview in english of an AKB48 member. oh my god that was terrible. (it was on the dvd that came with her single. you'd think they'd choose something that plays to her strengths.)

but i also noticed that because i've listened to Japanese speak English so many times that i was surprisingly able to understand it fine. one of my coworkers called me over because she had trouble communicating with a Japanese person speaking English, and i was able to understand it easily.

since i'm filipino, whenever i hear manny pacquiao speak i laugh because it's heavily accented but i also understand him perfectly. i wonder if other people can't. (also, pacquiao is a baller. he was raised in the slums and is bilingual!)

makes me wonder what the "native" accent really is, and i suppose it also depends on who you're speaking with.

nadiatims Wrote:This happens when people 'ghettoise' themselves in a non-native language bubble. Perhaps they had been speaking the language as a lingua franca with other non-natives for years in their home country, or they learned from non-natives. Then when they move to the country their level of exposure to the native language spoken by natives doesn't necessarily increase substantially enough. They work as a programmer or taxi driver all day and then go home to their non-native wife and kids. Maybe their level was never high enough in the first place and they found it hard to assimilate and make native friends or they just don't spend much time socialising and/or watching TV. They have other hobbies and the level they have reached is good enough for their purposes and they don't see any need to increase their exposure to native speech in order to improve.

my boss has been working here longer than i've been alive and communicates all day in English. it's heavily accented and there's still a few misunderstandings. meetings are long because it takes so long for him to say something, not with awkward silences and pauses but just the way he constructs his sentences.
i don't think it's an input problem but a combined lack of feedback and desire for revision.

mezbup Wrote:That just isn't my personal style. Which brings me to my point... it's a matter of how you feel about it.

one of the fundamental problems of "do what works for you" is that often times we judge techniques or studies too quickly, or we think too highly of ourselves.

in your case, you have concrete experience, AND you finished to fluency. that's something some of us can build on. we can implement your technique, gain valuable insight, ask questions that we can mutually build on and refine both of our study programs. to me, that's the spirit of this board and most of the posters here, which is why i love reading and posting here. we learn a lot from each other's experience EVEN if we disagree.

on the other hand, the OP...
-writes in an authoritative tone
-claims a theme that multiple people fail to grasp because of the writing style and content not found until, then denounces everyone for "not understanding properly"
-when questioned, gives no proof and says "take it or leave it, you can use whatever you want i don't care, it's going to work for me."

how is that helpful to anyone? like seriously, what is this:

vgambit Wrote:

kainzero Wrote:Why even bother learning how to speak Japanese then, if you can be understood for anything you will ever do?

Wow. You're right. I have no reason to learn Japanese, because I'll never have to actually use it. I guess I'll stop studying now. Thanks for the advice.

what i was implying was that if your goal has nothing to do with output, why bother learning output (and preaching about output technique)? at one point i concentrated specifically only on input and even more specifically reading because all i really cared about was reading. i didn't care about fluency. i really didn't care about talking to japanese people or watching tv. i just wanted to read articles and magazines on the internet and adjusted my study program as such.

instead i get a sarcastic reply that you're gonna quit japanese. i think that pretty much says it all regarding the nature of your posts.

AlexandreC Wrote:

vgambit Wrote:

mezbup Wrote:I know I could learn to understand it through attempting to have conversations with people. That just isn't my personal style. Which brings me to my point... it's a matter of how you feel about it.

That's the idea I'm really trying to get through to people. Do what you want. That's what I'm doing. I just decided to share it.

If we should all do whatever we want and it all has equal value, I don't much see the point in sharing your own view, let alone claiming it's the right way.

What?
We do what we like and what we feel works best for ourselves, and then we can talk about that to get others opinions and discuss what might be improvements etc, and maybe encourage each other to look at things from other perspectives. Vgambit wrote in his second post that he was half-joking with the claim that this is the "best method" because he wanted to share the way of studying that he feels is ultimately the most suitable one for himself, and have a discussion about it.

If your opinions are more valuable than others, maybe you should take them somewhere where people don't share their own views and appreciate getting scolded by arrogant strangers on the internet?

TwoMoreCharacters Wrote:If your opinions are more valuable than others, maybe you should take them somewhere where people don't share their own views and appreciate getting scolded by arrogant strangers on the internet?

Any suggestions?

AlexandreC Wrote:If we should all do whatever we want and it all has equal value, I don't much see the point in sharing your own view, let alone claiming it's the right way.

TwoMoreCharacters Wrote:What?
We do what we like and what we feel works best for ourselves, and then we can talk about that to get others opinions and discuss what might be improvements etc, and maybe encourage each other to look at things from other perspectives.

I think you and Alexandre are saying the same thing. We wouldn't bother sharing our experience and seeking other opinions/improvements if we actually believed that all methods are equally good. :-)

People's opinions will differ, so we're left to weigh self-reports of progress and references to expert opinion or research results.

The internet is fantastic for language learners in so many ways, but volume of information doesn't always mean better quality. Some language learning concepts are initially mischaracterized and become increasingly distorted with each reiteration in various popular blogs and forums. (for eg, ajatt.com is not Krashen's input method, yet Krashen's theories are repeatedly and uncritically offered as scientific validation of ajatt.) It's important that people continue to clarify and critique. (Perhaps Alexandre's slightly frustrated tone is a reflection of this reality.)

Accent:
By linking early output to bad accent, vgambit appears to be conflating language acquisition and accent. As a result, the ensuing discussion seems a bit confused. AlexandreC's attempt to clarify that point is what this forum is about, isn't it?

I like that vgambit's personal method has hiragana first. And merlin.codex's advice to focus early on hiragana and pronunciation isn't incompatible with the input method. It would enhance it.

Comprehensible Input:
vgambit advocates diving into adult native material at the intermediate level. This seems consistent with Krashen's theories. In a video posted earlier by 2MoreCharacters, Krashen recommends classes (conducted his way with comprehensible input) until the intermediate stage when learners can actually benefit from input. He considers incomprehensible input useless "noise". (Much of Krashen's stuff is classroom based, so substitute self-study for the first part. Also, a rationale for the silent period in natural language classrooms is to avoid beginner performance anxiety which is thought to interfere with acquisition. This is less of a concern with methods used by self-studiers.)

Fossilization:
Folks often argue that classes encourage as much free output as possible as early as possible. I don't think this is correct. The beginner classroom methods I've come across use very controlled output. There also seems to be a lot of unnecessary fear-mongering regarding "fossilization" and exaggerated claims that input is the only remedy. I'm more persuaded by academics who note that desire and willingness to improve is as important a factor as input. People surrounded by quality native input sometimes don't learn the language or improve at all.

How avoidable or fixable a problem is depends on the type of problem. [Even massive amounts of input won't give someone a large enough repertoire of phrases to ensure speech free of mistakes. Grammar and word usage generalizations, guesses and mistakes are inevitable. They're part of acquisition. (Krashen's monitor hypothesis has been heavily criticized - learning and acquisition are not considered so separate and learning influences acquisition earlier than the monitor phase he describes.) On the other hand, some pronunciation problems can be tricky to correct.] This is one reason given for working on pronunciation before input.
Edit in [ ].

@kainzero:
You appear to be taking specific words (not even sentences; words) that I've said out of context, then responding to the result instead of what it was that I actually said. My goal does not "have nothing to do with output." Stop sensationalizing my words.

"Authoritative tone..." Since when was this forum a professional writing course?

@AlexandreC:
For someone who claims to have studied 12 languages (and even taught some), your reading comprehension leaves something to be desired. Please understand that there is a key difference between not wanting to speak now and not wanting to speak ever.

Irreparable bad accent? Scare people? I don't have a website or qualifications or anything to give credence to my method other than what I've already said, and I hardly think that's enough to "scare" anyone. Have you not seen all the people responding with their own methods? Are those the words of the blind, who heedlessly follow anything anyone tells them, or the words of those who are all learning Japanese the right way?

@Thora:
I completely agree that incomprehensible input is noise, but not just because Krashen said it. I agree because I've tried it myself, and have seen its effects (or lack thereof) firsthand. I was pissed off because I couldn't understand it, and the sounds were about as effective as television static.

Then I started listening to J-Rap. Not following AJATT's recommendation of pop garbage, but actual, true Japanese hip-hop. At least 99% of the lyrics were incomprehensible to me, but I have a deep understanding of boom-bap, so that didn't matter. I enjoyed it. I've been a hardcore fan of it going on two years, now. I still don't understand what's being said, but if I want to understand it, I can just keep the lyrics in mind and do a Google translate of them from memory later.

The funny thing is, if I didn't have my studies as a base, I wouldn't know to type "ha" when I hear "wa." Further, I wouldn't know when I should actually type "wa." In fact, I still don't know the rule. But I do know when it is or isn't correct simply because I've seen it so many times. I've seen and heard so many words that, even though I don't know what most of them mean, I know when the "wa" sound is actually a particle and when it's a part of a word. It's hard to describe how, but I just intuitively know. I didn't get that from a book; I got it from listening with enough knowledge to actually hear what is being said.

It is that same knowledge I have drawn upon my entire life for English. I couldn't explain a single formal rule of the language if you asked me to, but if you wrote a sentence, I could determine its validity instantaneously, regardless of its complexity. I've read enough books to know proper sentence patterns, and they're all in my head; if they're new, they're wrong. Point blank. That's fluency. That's the point I want to get to before I start worrying about pronouncing the nasal "ga" or whatever.

kainzero Wrote:i just watched an obviously scripted interview in english of an AKB48 member. oh my god that was terrible. (it was on the dvd that came with her single. you'd think they'd choose something that plays to her strengths.)

ouch. That's so easily explainable by the lack of output Japanese English education has. If you ask them any word out of context they know it, but can't use it in a sentence, because they learn rote style from lists to fill in forms but not to talk.

As a native English speaker you get used to accents, in fact id go as far to say as a native, I hate neutral English accents. I spend more time trying to figure out where you're from than what you're saying. We get used to deciphering all forms of English, good, bad indifferent.

Kainzero ^ I know your a starcraft player too, what did you make of the whole Kelly Milkies thing at the GSL? Due to her English accent. I honestly had no problem understanding what she said, but apparently I was in the minority.

Gingerninja Wrote:

kainzero Wrote:i just watched an obviously scripted interview in english of an AKB48 member. oh my god that was terrible. (it was on the dvd that came with her single. you'd think they'd choose something that plays to her strengths.)

ouch. That's so easily explainable by the lack of output Japanese English education has. If you ask them any word out of context they know it, but can't use it in a sentence, because they learn rote style from lists to fill in forms but not to talk.

No, it's explainable by her lack of exposure to real English. It's clear she cannot actually understand English much at all and this interview is highly scripted and likely edited to cut out all the bumbling. In fact language education in Japan these days places way too much emphasis on practising speaking via scripted dialogues and roleplaying, etc. Her english sucks, but I don't think lack of output practice is the problem here.

Gingerninja Wrote:

kainzero Wrote:i just watched an obviously scripted interview in english of an AKB48 member. oh my god that was terrible. (it was on the dvd that came with her single. you'd think they'd choose something that plays to her strengths.)

ouch. That's so easily explainable by the lack of output Japanese English education has.

I don't think that's so easily explainable by the lack of output. Japanese English education suffers from a severe lack of input, especially native input. I think that's the bigger problem in that interview.

Gingerninja Wrote:ouch. That's so easily explainable by the lack of output Japanese English education has. If you ask them any word out of context they know it, but can't use it in a sentence, because they learn rote style from lists to fill in forms but not to talk.

I really don't think anyone can draw any conclusions on her prior English education at all based on a 4 minute interview with canned responses. I just wanted to illustrate the point of the heavy Japanese accent on English and how I'm used to it, but other people couldn't understand it at all.

If you do the right web searches, you can find Japanese people making fun of her horrible accent... but I feel like that's not the way to go about promoting English study. I find that a lot of internet commenters prefer to poke fun at other people's English instead of working on their own, anyway.

Quote:Kainzero ^ I know your a starcraft player too, what did you make of the whole Kelly Milkies thing at the GSL? Due to her English accent. I honestly had no problem understanding what she said, but apparently I was in the minority.

I'm a starcraft fan, not a starcraft 2 fan =)
I have no idea what went on with Milkies.
Then again, I remember everyone went nuts when they said they were gonna have a female do commentary, which cued up all the sexism arguments...

kainzero Wrote:i wonder if other people can't.

Pacman is too awesome not to understand.

AlexandreC Wrote:

vgambit Wrote:I'm tempted to find the article about the man who spent the first 25+ years of his life as a mute, and became a fluent speaker the moment he underwent a surgery that gave him the ability to move his vocal cords, ...

If a child has not learned language in the first few years of his life, he is unlikely to ever become a successful speaker at all. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_period) Moreover, if a child had learned sign language instead, it's highly unlikely that regaining the use of his vocal cords would make his a fluent English speaker; first, English would be his second language, and second, training all his muscle (tongue, throat, soft palate, etc.) would take a long time.

Setting aside the fact that the critical period theory is highly disputed, the critical period has nothing to do with the person vgambit is talking about here. This person did learn a spoken language, presumably in the first few years of his life, but could simply not produce it with his vocal cords.

This is also different from a deaf person who is unable to hear a language's sounds and has to rely on sign language or written language for both receiving and transmitting communication.
Aside from your plausible supposition that training the vocal cords would take some time, the rest of your argument here is ridiculous.

Thanks for these tips! I'll keep that in mind!