Valproate reopens critical-period learning of absolute pitch (2013)

Re:Valproate reopens critical-period learning of absolute pi... by robocat on Monday August 10, 2020 @12:24AM (#24105549)

> That's because there are no long and short vowels or consonants in English--the distinction doesn't matter.

English has the distinction for vowels and it does matter. “can’t” and “cunt” have the same vowel sound in some accents, but “can’t” needs a long vowel sound while “cunt” needs a short vowel sound. Native English speakers speak those those two words quite distinctly.

Lose/loose is another pair (confusingly “lose“ has a long vowel sound and “loose” has a short vowel sound.)

Moon needs a long vowel sound to sound right. I am sure you can think of other examples.

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Re:Valproate reopens critical-period learning of absolute pi... by klodolph on Monday August 10, 2020 @01:54AM (#24106014)

You're right, that in some dialects it is different. But to most English dialects, "can't" and "cunt" have completely different vowels, and the length isn't distinguished. "Lose" and "loose" are also distinguished by the voicing, "lose" ends with /z/ and "loose" ends with /s/. Maybe not all dialects.

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