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Extremely interesting. Some other commenters mentioned this is off-topic; I think it's pertinent to understanding what's behind the empirical evidence pg presen

by arbuge 13y ago

Extremely interesting. Some other commenters mentioned this is off-topic; I think it's pertinent to understanding what's behind the empirical evidence pg presented. This paragraph in particular: It is brutally hard for most people (after the age of puberty, and perhaps especially for males) to learn to attend to sound distinctions that don't exist in the learner's native language. That is especially hard when the sound distinction signifies a grammatical distinction that also doesn't exist in the learner's native language. For example, the distinction between "I speak" and "he speaks" in English involves a consonant cluster at the end of a syllable, and no such consonant clusters exist in the Mandarin sound system at all. Worse than that, no such grammatical distinction as "first person singular" and "third person singular" for inflecting verbs exists in Mandarin, so it is remarkably difficult for Mandarin-speaking learners of English to learn to distinguish "speaks" from "speak" and to say "he speaks Chinese" rather than "he speak Chinese" (not a grammatical phrase in spoken English). One thing I've noticed is that there seem to be relatively few super-successful Chinese immigrant founders in the USA. Fewer than Indians for example, even though both are large immigrant communities. My wife is Chinese and her theory is that Chinese aren't really good at teamwork. I think it has more to do with their difficulties in catching the subtleties of the language as described above. It is not quite a problem of them not communicating their message well, I think. Most of the time they do, although it may not aesthetically be very pleasing. It is more an issue of them missing alot when you speak to them, unless you conciously try to adapt to your audience.

001sky 13y ago
Interesting, but a couple of points worth considering. It is more an issue of them missing alot when you speak to them Language grasp =/= communications skills. (1) Plenty of studies on body language and other forms of cognitive bias back this up. Attractive people are deemed more trustworthy etc. (2) There are huge swathes of social interactions and nuances that cultural signals. 'Westenized' children educated for example in the us or uk grasp intuitively things completely alien to their parents or to similar kids brought up in the east. Such examples of ""comprehension has noting to do with wether or no the kids have accents or their "language skills". (3) A regional welsh, working class, or a northern uk dialect is almost indecipherable to many americans. But such would not likely be a signal that this person won't be able to pick up westernized social cues.
wildgift 13y ago
What about NewEgg? You also have to look and see if there's a brain drain going to Taiwan and China, because Taiwan decided, years ago, to focus on making PCs.
jerrytsai 13y ago
My parents are from Taiwan, I was born in the U.S. I have reflected on this topic, and my thought was that South Asians, due to British colonization, appear to adapt more easily to American culture. Comparing immigrant parents from South and East Asia, (anecdotally) I have noted that South Asian parents speak English with greater facility than East Asian parents, which I have attributed to the effects of the British Raj. I also have noted that South Asians have a strong culture that resists rote Westernization, which I attribute to native Indians (etc.) learning over time about what to sustain and what to adopt from the culture of their British overlords. So I conclude that when South Asians emigrate to America, they have a "leg up" in adopting to American culture, while East Asians experience culture shock to a much greater degree. Not only is the language more unfamiliar, but East Asians don't have the historical/cultural experience of keeping their culture separate from a Western culture as South Asians do. As an example, look at the relative interest of children of immigrants in the USA's National Spelling Bee. I therefore think that because of these reasons, and because I think East Asian immigrants are as bright as South Asian immigrants, that we will observe a bolus of super-successful East Asian immigrants one generation later than when we observe a bolus of super-successful South Asian immigrants. Now obviously these observation are generalizations, but I suspect that the "strong accent" observation of PG is not just a proxy for facility with English but a measure of cultural adaptation than may be helpful in becoming successful in the USA.

by arbuge 13y ago

001sky 13y ago

Interesting, but a couple of points worth considering. It is more an issue of them missing alot when you speak to them Language grasp =/= communications skills. (1) Plenty of studies on body language and other forms of cognitive bias back this up. Attractive people are deemed more trustworthy etc. (2) There are huge swathes of social interactions and nuances that cultural signals. 'Westenized' children educated for example in the us or uk grasp intuitively things completely alien to their parents or to similar kids brought up in the east. Such examples of ""comprehension has noting to do with wether or no the kids have accents or their "language skills". (3) A regional welsh, working class, or a northern uk dialect is almost indecipherable to many americans. But such would not likely be a signal that this person won't be able to pick up westernized social cues.

wildgift 13y ago

What about NewEgg? You also have to look and see if there's a brain drain going to Taiwan and China, because Taiwan decided, years ago, to focus on making PCs.

jerrytsai 13y ago

My parents are from Taiwan, I was born in the U.S. I have reflected on this topic, and my thought was that South Asians, due to British colonization, appear to adapt more easily to American culture. Comparing immigrant parents from South and East Asia, (anecdotally) I have noted that South Asian parents speak English with greater facility than East Asian parents, which I have attributed to the effects of the British Raj. I also have noted that South Asians have a strong culture that resists rote Westernization, which I attribute to native Indians (etc.) learning over time about what to sustain and what to adopt from the culture of their British overlords. So I conclude that when South Asians emigrate to America, they have a "leg up" in adopting to American culture, while East Asians experience culture shock to a much greater degree. Not only is the language more unfamiliar, but East Asians don't have the historical/cultural experience of keeping their culture separate from a Western culture as South Asians do. As an example, look at the relative interest of children of immigrants in the USA's National Spelling Bee. I therefore think that because of these reasons, and because I think East Asian immigrants are as bright as South Asian immigrants, that we will observe a bolus of super-successful East Asian immigrants one generation later than when we observe a bolus of super-successful South Asian immigrants. Now obviously these observation are generalizations, but I suspect that the "strong accent" observation of PG is not just a proxy for facility with English but a measure of cultural adaptation than may be helpful in becoming successful in the USA.