Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!ucla-cs!zen!ucbvax!sdcsvax!ucsdhub!esosun!seismo!uunet!mcvax!inria!imag!csinn!grossi
From: grossi@csinn.uucp (Thomas Grossi)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: natural language examiners
Summary: native fluency is more than just sounds
Keywords: dialect turing
Message-ID: <733@csinn.UUCP>
Date: 14 Dec 87 11:19:50 GMT
References: <1882@pdn.UUCP>
Organization: Cap Sogeti Innovation, Grenoble, France
Lines: 22

> I suspect that the only way to pin it down would be to plot the
> frequency spectrum of each spoken sound, and judge an entity to
> be speaking the standard dialect iff it does not deviate from
> some standard for each spoken sound by more than a set amount and
> if the speech rate does not deviate...etc.  
> -- 
> Colin Kendall				Paradyne Corporation

fine, but mastery of a language goes far beyond being able to pronounce all the
sounds of a language.  Intonation is extremely important, not only because if
you don't get it right you'll sound "strange" but also because of its semantic
content -- it's often impossible to tell when a "foreigner" is trying to sound
sarcastic!  Another aspect that I was completely unaware of until I came to live
in a foreign country is that not only must you learn an entirely new vocabulary,
you must also learn to say completely different things in the same circumstances.
(for example, if someone steps on your foot and apologizes -- "Excuse me" -- an
appropriate response in English would be "certainly" whereas in French you would
say "Il n'y a pas de mal" -- "no harm done" in the closest translation)

Thomas Grossi				...!mcvax!csinn!grossi
Cap Sogeti Innovation
Grenoble, France