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Incomprehensible rambling
Mar. 4th, 2010 10:36 pmI’ve spent this week learning new techniques at another laboratory (because we don’t have the equipment or place, yet) and finally speaking English. I mean finally because my boss is Polish and it’s often just the two of us and we talk in Polish. It was just like those people who come to another country but only work among their compatriots and never speak local language. Only I’ve spent more years on gaining knowledge. And learning the language.
I know English pretty well. I understand it very well. I never have problem with anyone speaking to fast and accents are usually not a problem for me. For example I never understood when some Americans say they need close captioning for British shows. It’s the same language and the most of the accents are not that hard to understand. And Brits usually have better annunciation. I also don’t translate the English in my head when I hear it, speak it or read it I just think in it. At least that’s how it seems to me. The studies about how brain process language say that your first language, the one you learn in the first two years of your life is recorded in a different part of the brain then the ones you learn later. And all those who you learn later go through a certain interpretation to your first language. And that the second language is stored in a bit different place in your brain. The later you learn the second one, the more work your brain has to do. It’s also connected to the fact that learning also means losing some skills – like hearing some sounds as different. This help to hear the difference between the words and background noise – that’s how you can follow conversation in a loud room. But it also means that Japanese cannot hear the difference between ‘r’ and ‘l’, many non-Slavic people confuse ‘ć’ and ‘cz’ and most foreigners can never say ‘th’ properly.
This all I knew but I’ve noticed one thing during this week about myself and English. Despite having no problem understanding English I can’t listen to music and follow what is said to me at the same time. Listening to music and having conversation in Polish doesn’t bother me at all. I often kept my MP3 on (I listen to music at a very low volume – just a background) and had long conversations and didn’t even think about it. But with English I cannot concentrate on what people are saying to me while I listen to music. Things I need to understand escape me. I wonder if, at least partly, English is coded in my brain in the music connected centres and not just language connected ones. I wonder if anyone else ever experience that.
I know English pretty well. I understand it very well. I never have problem with anyone speaking to fast and accents are usually not a problem for me. For example I never understood when some Americans say they need close captioning for British shows. It’s the same language and the most of the accents are not that hard to understand. And Brits usually have better annunciation. I also don’t translate the English in my head when I hear it, speak it or read it I just think in it. At least that’s how it seems to me. The studies about how brain process language say that your first language, the one you learn in the first two years of your life is recorded in a different part of the brain then the ones you learn later. And all those who you learn later go through a certain interpretation to your first language. And that the second language is stored in a bit different place in your brain. The later you learn the second one, the more work your brain has to do. It’s also connected to the fact that learning also means losing some skills – like hearing some sounds as different. This help to hear the difference between the words and background noise – that’s how you can follow conversation in a loud room. But it also means that Japanese cannot hear the difference between ‘r’ and ‘l’, many non-Slavic people confuse ‘ć’ and ‘cz’ and most foreigners can never say ‘th’ properly.
This all I knew but I’ve noticed one thing during this week about myself and English. Despite having no problem understanding English I can’t listen to music and follow what is said to me at the same time. Listening to music and having conversation in Polish doesn’t bother me at all. I often kept my MP3 on (I listen to music at a very low volume – just a background) and had long conversations and didn’t even think about it. But with English I cannot concentrate on what people are saying to me while I listen to music. Things I need to understand escape me. I wonder if, at least partly, English is coded in my brain in the music connected centres and not just language connected ones. I wonder if anyone else ever experience that.
