We have been studying intonation, so I thought that students might like to see this.

Fascinating information from the Max Planck Society.

Scientists looked at recordings of crying babies.  There were 30 French babies, and 30 German babies.  All of the babies were aged between 2 and 5 days old.

Conclusion: (a) Babies cry differently, according to their parents’ language.  (b) Babies, before they are born, have already picked up the sound of their parents’ language.

In the third trimester, babies are good listeners.  They hear sounds and voices, especially the mother’s voice.

“The sense of hearing is the first sensory system that develops”, says Angela Friederici, a Director at the Max Planck Institute.  “What gets through are primarily the melodies and intonation of the respective language.”

In French, word stress is usually at the end.  Mama.  Papa.  Intonation ordinarily rises.

In German, word stress is usually at the start.  Mama.  Papa.  Intonation ordinarily falls.

Well:

German babies’ cries tend to start higher and louder, then fall in pitch and volume.

French babies’ cries tend to start lower, then rise in pitch and volume.

Image: MPI für Kognitions- und Neurowissenschaften

Very interesting.  Good job, Max Planck Institute!

Students, there is a moral in this somewhere.  I’ll leave you to find it for yourselves.

PS: I would love to record 30 Japanese babies…

Takeko Okada is the winner of Fukuyama English Centre’s first film festival.  Takeko wins for her slideshow entitled Students and Rabbits.

Students and Rabbits is a delightful short photo documentary.  It presents elementary school children taking care of rabbits.  Wonderful!

Girls and rabbits.  Can you think of anything cuter?

Takeko wins the CRYSTAL POLAR BEAR.

Congratulations, Takeko!

Last month’s Cabernet Sauvignon wine class was great fun.  Six students came.  We tasted six bottles of wine.  Three were supplied by FEC; three were donated by students.  Thank you, Hiro & Hiro!

Thanks also to Shigeko, for her always excellent coq au vin.  Great job, Shigeko!

coq

vin

Next wine class: Beaujolais!

Shigeko made a pumpkin pie tonight. We’ll have it with wine class tomorrow.

**Come in a costume, and class is free.**

We have been studying intonation, here at Fukuyama English Centre.

This week I am using Praat.

Praat (Dutch word, meaning “talk”) is a software program for the phonetic analysis of speech.

It’s free from the University of Amsterdam.  You can download it from the Praat home page.

Thank you, Paul Boersma and David Weenink, Praat’s creators.

Somebody put this nice plant in the garbage.

I took it, and brought it to school.

It’s a very nice plant, but I don’t know what kind it is.  Can anybody tell me?

Here’s a close-up of the leaves and buds.

Please identify me.

Yesterday was my birthday (today in Canada).

New students Nene and Momo gave me a cake.

That’s a lot of fire.

It was a lovely white cake with strawberries on top.  Delicious!  Thank you, Nene, Momo, and Mama.

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Yesterday, I got this beautiful card from Anna, Chise, Ryogo, Rina, Sayo, and Juri.

Thank you, my little friends!  And your mothers.

October 31 we will study wines from the Cabernet Sauvignon grape.

Shigeko and I went shopping today.

These are the wines.

The peopling of the islands continues.

One student won a prize for her tribe today.  She earned a tiddlywink for the camels.

The camels are the first tribe to earn points in our autumn speaking contest.  Congratulations, camels!

All classes have finished their first week of autumn term.  Most students have chosen their tribe for this year’s schoolwide speaking competition.

There are 7 tribes.

• polar bears
• dolphins
• camels
• sloths
• kiwis
• water spiders
• hippos

Tribal members are beginning to populate their islands.

Migration will really escalate next week.

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This morning I cut myself shaving.  It was near class time, and I wanted to stop the blood.  So I put some sugar on the cut.  The bleeding stopped very quickly.

Hello, Sugarlips.