No wonder I was exhausted after watching "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon".... (1 Viewer)

[Danny Tse]

Check this out....

More Brain Power Needed for Mandarin Than English

 

[John Watson]

So, Chinese rock is more cerebral?

 

[Max Leung]

For a moment I thought this thread was about watching CTHD on a DLP projector.

 

[NickSo]

Now i have an excuse why my marks in Mandarin class were so low

 

[Rain]

I almost fell asleep several times during Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but I don't think it had anything to do with the language of the film.

 

[Graeme Clark]

I recently fell asleep during a silent film... what does that mean?!?

 

[Rain]

It means it was 1am and you had too much beer and....

Well, you get the point. :p)

 

[Yee-Ming]

From the article:-

"It seems that the structure of the language you learn as a child affects how the structure of your brain develops to decode speech. Native English speakers, for example, find it extraordinarily difficult to learn Mandarin," Scott said.

I'm just wondering what the experience of Chinese-Americans/Canadians who tried to learn Mandarin later in life is? I've been speaking both since childhood, admittedly my English is much, much better than my Mandarin (where by now I've degenerated to being functionally illiterate :b but I can certainly still speak it), and am wondering how those who started at, say, age 10 fared in contrast.

 

[NickSo]

lol, my situation is the same as Yee-Ming... Well cantonese was my 'frist' language, but then i came to Canada, and now I speak english perfectly no accent whatsoever... But my cantonese/mandarin has suffered a lot. Haha kinda funny coincidence working today... I had about 6 customers, seriously about FOUR of them could NOT speak english. I had to speak cantonese to one of them, and MANDARIN (which i have VERY limited ability in speaking) to the other three. I got by allright

 

[Graeme Clark]

Well cantonese was my 'frist' language, but then i came to Canada, and now I speak english perfectly

Still gotta work on the typing though

 

[Yee-Ming]

Ironically, my first (chronologically-speaking) language ws Mandarin Chinese, the second was Dutch (I was born in Holland), and I only started learning English (I think) when we moved to England when I was about 6. Promptly forgot all my Dutch (sorry Cees!) but took English on board in place. As for accents, I used to speak exactly like a Brit (for obvious reasons), but that's faded a lot since I "returned" to Singapore.

I've wondered about the business of "hardwiring" the brain with regards to speech patterns, I was taking German some years ago and I found pronunciation a breeze despite all those nasty "ch" sounds, but a lot of classmates were struggling. Perhaps my early experiences in speaking Dutch helped wire some of those sounds in my brain, even though I don't actually know any Dutch today?

 

[Kirk Tsai]

I probably learned English and Mandarin simultaneously during my childhood. Right now, I'd say my command over oral communications of the two languages are equal, but with better reading/writing skills in English.