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It does distinguish Chinese. It's quicker to count to 10 in Chinese than in most other languages. Malcolm Gladwell did some good research ('Outliers' is a grea

It does distinguish Chinese. It's quicker to count to 10 in Chinese than in most other languages. Malcolm Gladwell did some good research ('Outliers' is a great book) in this area. Chinese are generally better at math than other ethnicities precisely because of their language. Take a look at the following list of numbers: 4,8,5,3,9,7,6. Read them out loud to yourself. Now look away, and spend twenty seconds memorizing that sequence before saying them out loud again. Gladwell points out that the English speakers have about 50 percent chance of remembering that sequence perfectly, but the Chinese are almost certain to get it right every time. He explains, "Because as human beings we store digits in a memory loop that runs for about two seconds. We most easily memorize whatever we can say or read within that two second span. "And Chinese speakers get that list of numbers—4,8,5,3,9,7,6—right every time because—unlike English speakers—their language allows them to fit all those seven numbers into two seconds," Gladwell adds. https://gineersnow.com/students/best-explanation-asians-good-math https://gineersnow.com/students/best-explanation-asians-good...

cormacrelf 5y ago
Thanks Malcolm, very scientific. As we all know, maths is all about memorising short sequences of numbers, and always being sure to say them out loud or at the very least sub-vocalise them. My maths teacher always liked to read us our numbers like it was storytime, gather round kids, we're going to learn about the lottery again, so many of you struggled with that last week. And of course, those Asians beat us every time, us poor whites could barely string three or four numbers together.
loudmax 5y ago
Well if we're just speculating here, I'll add that since Chinese is tonal, Chinese speakers will remember the tune of sequence, not just a list of values. It's easier to remember a melody than a phone number.
- ajuc 5y ago
  Even non-tonal languages have melodies, for example English people use a lot of intonation compared for to my native Polish. When I was in UK everybody sounded like they were talking to infants or dogs :) You don't normally use it for numbers but you certainly can, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab8GtuPdrUQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab8GtuPdrUQ Another useful mnemonic that for me works even better than melody is rhythm. I noticed that I have about 20-notes buffer for last-heard rhythmic phrase even if I wasn't paying attention at the time. So for example after I ran down a flight of stairs I can count them by remembering the rhythm of my steps and adding them. My friend who has way better short term memory than me can't do this, but he can see the image he was looking at recently. Now that's cheating :)
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    > Even non-tonal languages have melodies, for example English people use a lot of intonation compared for to my native Polish. When I was in UK everybody sounded like they were talking to infants or dogs It might just be more obvious since the English patterns are unfamiliar. One of the more surreal experiences I've had was watching an English-language news broadcast in China. The presenter was speaking English and had obviously put in a lot of effort trying to learn what natural English sounded like. The general pattern of intonation over her sentences was quite realistic for English. What made it surreal was that the intonation didn't match the words. Everything she said, it was like she was using the intonation pattern of some other sentence and applying it to a completely different sentence.
  - still_grokking 5y ago
    Polish has a lot of intonation—which is also kind of unique. I can instantly recognize people speaking Polish, even in larger groups of people talking all kind of languages, just by the very typical sentence melody that sticks out. But it's indeed quite different to other languages, even the other Slavic ones. Germanic intonation and sentence melody (for example like in German or English) is completely distinct from the Polish one. And this melody seems to be something sticky as you can always recognize Polish people just by their intonation even when they speak otherwise perfect German or English. That's not the case for for example Russian, or Czech, or Slovak people.
perl4ever 5y ago
That seems to me like a lack of imagination on his part even assuming he has some grounds for the "2 second" rule. How does he know that people remember it via "reading out loud to themselves"? Maybe they visualize it instead. Maybe people chunk it into a 3 digit and a 4 digit number, like a phone number. Why should "reading out loud to yourself" be limited to the speed of actual speech anyway?
zzt123 5y ago
I’ll be damned, I just tried that and it was exceptionally easier to do in Mandarin, a language that I have to think to count in, than in English.
thaumasiotes 5y ago
> Malcolm Gladwell did some good research This is not something you hear often.

cormacrelf 5y ago

Thanks Malcolm, very scientific. As we all know, maths is all about memorising short sequences of numbers, and always being sure to say them out loud or at the very least sub-vocalise them. My maths teacher always liked to read us our numbers like it was storytime, gather round kids, we're going to learn about the lottery again, so many of you struggled with that last week. And of course, those Asians beat us every time, us poor whites could barely string three or four numbers together.

loudmax 5y ago

Well if we're just speculating here, I'll add that since Chinese is tonal, Chinese speakers will remember the tune of sequence, not just a list of values. It's easier to remember a melody than a phone number.

ajuc 5y ago
Even non-tonal languages have melodies, for example English people use a lot of intonation compared for to my native Polish. When I was in UK everybody sounded like they were talking to infants or dogs :) You don't normally use it for numbers but you certainly can, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab8GtuPdrUQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab8GtuPdrUQ Another useful mnemonic that for me works even better than melody is rhythm. I noticed that I have about 20-notes buffer for last-heard rhythmic phrase even if I wasn't paying attention at the time. So for example after I ran down a flight of stairs I can count them by remembering the rhythm of my steps and adding them. My friend who has way better short term memory than me can't do this, but he can see the image he was looking at recently. Now that's cheating :)
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  > Even non-tonal languages have melodies, for example English people use a lot of intonation compared for to my native Polish. When I was in UK everybody sounded like they were talking to infants or dogs It might just be more obvious since the English patterns are unfamiliar. One of the more surreal experiences I've had was watching an English-language news broadcast in China. The presenter was speaking English and had obviously put in a lot of effort trying to learn what natural English sounded like. The general pattern of intonation over her sentences was quite realistic for English. What made it surreal was that the intonation didn't match the words. Everything she said, it was like she was using the intonation pattern of some other sentence and applying it to a completely different sentence.
- still_grokking 5y ago
  Polish has a lot of intonation—which is also kind of unique. I can instantly recognize people speaking Polish, even in larger groups of people talking all kind of languages, just by the very typical sentence melody that sticks out. But it's indeed quite different to other languages, even the other Slavic ones. Germanic intonation and sentence melody (for example like in German or English) is completely distinct from the Polish one. And this melody seems to be something sticky as you can always recognize Polish people just by their intonation even when they speak otherwise perfect German or English. That's not the case for for example Russian, or Czech, or Slovak people.

perl4ever 5y ago

That seems to me like a lack of imagination on his part even assuming he has some grounds for the "2 second" rule. How does he know that people remember it via "reading out loud to themselves"? Maybe they visualize it instead. Maybe people chunk it into a 3 digit and a 4 digit number, like a phone number. Why should "reading out loud to yourself" be limited to the speed of actual speech anyway?

zzt123 5y ago

I’ll be damned, I just tried that and it was exceptionally easier to do in Mandarin, a language that I have to think to count in, than in English.

thaumasiotes 5y ago

> Malcolm Gladwell did some good research This is not something you hear often.