Linguistic Pitfalls and Heights

[lady_of_clunn]

Poor Tani.

She is playing some sort of brain game on her DSi that makes her shout colours at it.

No problem, eh?

Well, the DSi only seems to understand American English, so the poor child is shouting "blue" at the thing and it doesn't recognise the word, because when she says it, it sound more like "blew".

The louder she shouts, the more nasal the "blew" gets.

Very frustrated little mouse...



Yeah, I told her to say "bloo", it worked like a charm. Picky gadget.



Anyhow, today Tania went up one reading level. YAY!

She can now select 'turquoise' books. Children here take home a book every day to read with their parents. Books are sorted by a colour scheme representing the suitability for certain reading abilities. Turquise is quite high up.

*grins like a loon*

And to think that a bit more than a year ago she could not speak English or read in any language! Now she reads books by herself AND has taught herself how to read German as well.

I think I'll take the little genious for a treat on the weekend.

Comments

[fbs-fic.livejournal.com]

This confuses me, since I'm American and I say 'blue' and 'blew' in exactly the same way. In fact, I thought they were homophones. I'd say that whatever voice recognition technology that comes with the DSi just sucks.

As for Tani, she's obviously brilliant! :D

[lady-of-clunn.livejournal.com]

How do I explain that? Here, blue and blew also sound pretty much the same, but not the same as bloo.

It's that nasal British thing that makes so into sew, do into dew, road into rewd, soap into sewp and so on.

Am I making sense?

When Tania got really angry with her toy, blue sounded more like bleh ;)

[partie-carree.livejournal.com]

I was just going to say the same thing. Born and raised in the States, with significant time in Canada as well. Both countries say blue and blew and bloo the same way.

And I am quite jealous of Tani's obvious innate ability for learning languages. I wish I had such skills.

[lady-of-clunn.livejournal.com]

Points up to strange explanation of southern English accents.

She is quite talented in languages, it took her two months here to be fluent in English. I really thought that it would be a problem for her to adjust, but she was just fine.

[willowfaerie2.livejournal.com]

Those voice things drive me nuts, so I agree with Tani. We have so many voice activated call centers these days. I call to check on my credit card bill and I can't get past step one because the computer doesn't understand what I am saying. grrr
I think I speak pretty clearly too.

[lady-of-clunn.livejournal.com]

I hate those recordings!

If you want to change your address, say yes... I did not understand. If you want to change your address, say yes...


Yes is not a complicated word. What's not to recognise??