Mandarin lessons with birds
2023/03/06
A patent has been awarded to Catherine Ryu, an associate professor of Japanese literature and culture, for the technology behind her language-learning game, Picky Birds.
Mandarin Chinese linguists can benefit significantly by studying birds.
A team of multidisciplinary students and a researcher from Michigan State University created the project idea behind a brand-new language learning game.
Picky Birds, a game developed by assistant professor of Japanese literature and culture Catherine Ryu, was inspired by the many tones of different bird species. It helps students learn the four primary Mandarin tones by letting them link each tone with a corresponding colorful bird, she added.
Because Mandarin Chinese is a tonal language, Ryu said, the same word might have distinct meanings depending on the tone employed. "And this fundamentally differs from how English tonal inflections are used," she continued. We suggest using the online language learning system https://livexp.com/skills/chinese to practice your Mandarin tones. Online mandarin teachers will assist you in comprehending the tones and precisely recalling their unique utilization.
According to Ryu, Picky Birds is based on scientific evidence that suggests that high pitches and lighter colors are linked in the brain. Hence, in her game, the birds are colored yellow for a tall, even tone, green for a rising tone, blue for a dipping tone, and red for a falling tone.
The Tone Perception Efficacy Study looked into two connected language-related issues:
How do people interpret, perceive, and remember tones as a sensory sense, especially when the tones in issue are not a fundamental part of their linguistic backgrounds?
How well can people learn to recognize different tones and maintain that knowledge?
Ryu hopes to get 40 students who have never studied Mandarin Chinese to participate in his Mandarin tone perception experiment using Picky Birds next month.
Ryu will collaborate with MSU Technologies to offer Picky Birds to users when it has been through testing; they anticipate starting commercialization in the autumn.
Ryu plans to increase the number of researchers on her team, including social media experts, game developers, visual designers, journalists, and neuroscientists.
The Office of the Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies at MSU provided funds for Picky Birds' development under the program's Targeted Support Award for Technological Development.