Engrish!

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We all know how the Japanese are famous for their Engrish. And we all know how difficult it is to learn a new language, especially when your language does not have an equivalent for certain sounds of the new language. Well, good news for you! Research has shown that Japanese adults CAN learn to differentiate between R and L!

Bradlow, Akahane-Yamada, Pisoni and Tohkura trained 11 Japanese speakers –none of whom had ever lived outside of Japan or had any special training for the English language. The participants underwent training with speech stimuli that were selected from a digital database of naturally produced /r/-/l/ minimal pairs. Minimal pairs are pairs of words who differ only at one segment in pronunciation, like “rat” and “rot” (Higgins, 2010).

Here is one of the experiments they underwent during the training. Minimal pairs were presented on screen in the English alphabet, and the spoken test word was presented through headphones. The participants then had 10 seconds identify the spoken word by pressing “1” for the word on the left of the screen, and “2” for the word on the right of the screen. If they answered correctly, they would hear a chime. If they answered incorrectly, they would hear a buzzer. For each correct answer, they were given one yen bonus. There were three talkers for the spoken words that were presented to the participants. They did this for about 3 to 4 weeks, with a total of 15 days. On each day, they were given 3 training sessions, for a total of 45 training sessions, with each training session lasting for about 20 to 30 minutes.

The participants were asked to return after three months for follow-up testing.

The results showed that training produced long-term modifications in both perception and production of the /r/-/l/ contrast. It also shows that the adult phonetic system displays neuroplasticity to undergo modification through laboratory listening alone –this means that we CAN learn to pronounce words that that have sounds that are not in our first or native language. The researchers took care to note, however, that the Japanees trainees were not able to reach native-like abilities to identify English /r/ and /l/. But who knows, maybe with more practice, they’ll be just as good!

Works Cited

Bradlow, A. R., Akahane-Yamada, R., Pisoni, D. B., & Tohkura, Y. (1999). Training Japanese listeners to identify English /r/ and /l/: Long-term retention of learning in perception and production. Perception & Psychophysics , 61 (5), 977-985.

Higgins, J. (2010, October 4). Minimal pairs for English RP. Retrieved October 15, 2010, from John and Muriel Higgins: http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/wordscape/wordlist/index.html