Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 October 10

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October 10

Why do foreign language learners sound like robots?

The question phrased this way may sound offensive, but that's not the point. I'm just wondering what are the qualities of robot-like speech and why foreign language learners sound like robots to native speakers. I've observed this among native English speakers who are learning Chinese, and I've heard this in native Chinese speakers who are learning English. They all sound like robots. Even Siri sounds weird. And Siri is "made of silicon". 50.4.236.254 (talk) 05:48, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

You're projecting your personal observations onto everyone. I've worked with many non-native English speakers, and they don't sound robotic to me. And I've heard native English speakers who do sound robotic. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:55, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

It's probably just the pauses in the wrong places while searching for a word. Native speakers tend to store whole phrases in memory, but it takes a while for foreign language learners to reach this stage, especially if they are taught by older methods where individual words are translated mentally from one language to the other. Some native speakers of English also sound like robots when they are reading unfamiliar English text because they read one word at a time. Dbfirs 07:46, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Is that latter point a failure of the education system, or a lack of interest by the student when learning to read? Or some of both? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:56, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Sometimes just poor eyesight. Dbfirs 09:50, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Maybe the problem is that the robots of your acquaintance are themselves English-language learners, still thinking in their elegant and natural Robot'ho idioms. --Trovatore (talk) 08:05, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

This likely has to do with the teaching method. In a typical beginner's second language class given in a school context, a student will have little chance to actually use the target language in sentences. There are too many students for anyone to have time to have significant direct interaction with the teacher, who is the only one around who actually speaks the language. So students will tend to learn some vocabulary and grammar rules, and will develop their ear for the foreign language by listening to the teacher and various media, but the actual production of language is neglected, leading to a very unnatural way of speaking (what the OP calls "robotic"). In more a advanced setting, such as a language school which, if it is any good, will have a much lower student to teacher ratio, or in a university setting where there are more resources such as conversation classes, this is less of a problem. Same thing if someone learns the second language in a natural context, where he gets to interact with native speakers in a variety of situations, and not in a classroom setting. --Xuxl (talk) 13:00, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

It probably depends on what you mean by "robot-like". If you mean that there's a lack of inflection - if the tone itself seems monotonous - or if the words all seem follow the same cadence, it could simply be that the speaker is concentrating too hard to getting the correct words and grammar out to give their speech more normal flow. You get a similar effect with people who are nervous speaking in public. Matt Deres (talk) 14:41, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

50.4.236.254 - I haven't really noticed the "robotic" thing, but if some non-native speakers do sound quasi-robotic, it's probably because the intonation and prosody system of their native language differs from the system of the language they're trying to speak and/or because they're worrying so much about details of vocabulary and grammar that they don't have much attention left over for trying to make what they say sound expressive and fluent. AnonMoos (talk) 16:15, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

This is right. I think 'robotic' here means something like 'staccato', in which case the specific problem in this case is usually the spectrum between stress-timed language and syllable-timed languages. In stress-timed languages such as English, the amount of time given to each syllable (roughly speaking, each complete sound) depends upon the grammatical and semantic importance of each word. So in "the cat sat on the mat", you give more time to "cat" and "mat" than to "the" and "on". In syllable-timed languages, each syllable gets an equal amount of time. There are other possibilities: the limited research on Bengali/Bangla suggests that syllables get more time at the start of the sentence than at the end (simplifying hugely). The Chinese family of languages lie across a broad area of the spectrum and have been studied intensively. Taiwanese newscasts are very strictly syllable-timed; someone speaking the Beijing dialect to another Beijinger would be much closer to stress-timed. Southern Chinese often have had a 'robotic' sound in English for this reason. If people learning Mandarin from an English-speaking background sound 'robotic' to a monolingual English speaker, you might be well advised to congratulate them on their excellent pronunciation! Matt's talk 10:51, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

Catalan's President?

I keep hearing news reports about "Catalan's President" saying or doing something.

Isn't he president of Catalonia, and isn't "Catalan" the demonym of his people and language?

Isn't "Catalan's President" like saying "French's President" or "British's Prime Minister"? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:05, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

He is the President of Catalonia, yeah. I haven't heard "Catalan's president" but that's definitely not right. Adam Bishop (talk) 20:42, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Common enough though. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 23:51, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

The people themselves are called Catalans, as opposed to Frenches or Britishes. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:09, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes. I could sort of accept "the Catalans' President", clunky and all as it is. But this "Catalan's President" B/S is coming from news organisations that have decent reputations and they really ought to know better. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:15, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Carles Puigdemont himself is a Catalan. Hence he is a Catalan president. However, the link CBW provided shows a proliferation of calling the country itself "Catalan", which is incorrect. Never underestimate the media's ability to invent new terms, be they right or wrong. I'm thinking of taking a vacation, to improve my language skills. First I'll go to Catalan, then to Spaniard. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:24, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

This isn't just about the president; there are plenty of google hits for "Catalan's separatists", "Catalan's independence", "Catalan's secession", etc. As Bugs says, these news editors must believe that "Catalan" is the name of the country. --82.69.159.206 (talk) 06:53, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Reminiscent of the Argentine / Argentinian debate. Alansplodge (talk) 08:43, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

[Rant warning] This is where sub-standard education spawns even greater ignorance. These news editors are typically young, fresh people - people who know nothing about the world at large, who have never heard of most countries apart from their own and a handful of other usual suspects, who know nothing about the history of the world before the present time, yet who have burning desires to be in the news industry, which involves telling the rest of the world how it is. When they fail to make even the most basic enquiries about the actual name of the country they're reporting on, how could we possibly trust anything else they write - about anything, ever? [End of rant]. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:48, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

• Thanks, all. I just wanted to make sure that 'Catalan' had not somehow become an acceptable name for the region. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:07, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Resolved

It's not necessarily their fault. A new recruit at the Foreign Office was given a job on the "Information Desk" for a country she had never heard of. Not only was she the only one there, she was given no training whatsoever. 46.208.167.127 (talk) 16:10, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

on that apparently absurd assertion. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 05:31, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Are there things more alliterative than the Pretty Princess and Penelope Pony Power Hour?

[1]

It's a big world, there probably are. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:57, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Go to about the 3:40 mark of this clip:[2] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:06, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

James Abbott McNeill Whistler on Oscar Wilde: What has Oscar in common with Art? except that he dines at our tables, and picks from our platters the plums for the pudding he peddles in the provinces... -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:10, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

There is when Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo. It's very rare. Relative to talking pink ponies, anyway. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:45, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. Akld guy (talk) 12:07, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

I forgot about that one. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:29, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Old Mother Hunt had a rough cut punt. Not a punt cut rough but a rough cut punt. Akld guy (talk) 12:09, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Dangerous to recite in public! -- Q Chris (talk) 09:25, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

As with anything to do with her son, Mike. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:03, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

It's a lot of fun at parties and gets funnier as the bottles empty. Akld guy (talk) 01:45, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

The sixth sick sheikh's sixth sheep's sick - and a hundred other tongue twisters. Wymspen (talk) 12:31, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Rzężą żądze u stóp. Or are limited to the English language? — Kpalion^(talk) 11:56, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

The black back brake block broke.

The Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den

<Deletion due to copyvio>

—Stephen (talk) 08:26, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

We have an article on this poem, which is often misunderstood. Matt's talk 10:54, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

Sadly, Stephen G. Brown I have had to delete the poem as a possible copyvio. See my comments on Talk:Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den if you need further details. The article on the poem makes your point anyway. Matt's talk 13:04, 14 October 2017 (UTC)