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Elective Plastic / Cosmetic Surgery

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Anonymous

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2161780.stm

More and more people in China are seeking tongue operations to improve their English.
Plastic surgeons say that with minor surgery, patients can improve their pronunciation almost overnight.

With China's growing internationalisation, people's determination to become more proficient in English has reached fever pitch.

The operation itself is simple and quick - just a snip of the muscle under the tongue using local anaesthetic - even if it does make you twinge.


Even after the snip people still need to do exercises

Plastic surgeon Dr Chu Jian is inundated with people begging for the operation because they want their English pronunciation to be clearer, freeing them from that tongue-tied feeling.

"Lots of people come to us asking for surgery hoping it'll help with their English pronunciation because they're taking interpreters exams or wanting to go abroad or get a job here with a foreign company," he said.

Dr Chu tells most of the people they do not need an operation because a strict regime of tongue exercises will work.

"There are lots of people who have serious problems with their tongues, affecting their pronunciation. They're not bothered about their Chinese pronunciation and they don't think about having an operation.

"But when they start to learn English they think it's really important, so they come to us," he said.
 
Reminds me of the craze for western eyes in Japan and the fixation on Audrey Hepburn that was current there at one time. Why lovely oriental women wanted to undergo surgery to get 'round eyes' is beyond me...................
 
Blueswidow said:
Reminds me of the craze for western eyes in Japan and the fixation on Audrey Hepburn that was current there at one time. Why lovely oriental women wanted to undergo surgery to get 'round eyes' is beyond me...................

i understand it wasnt so much round eyes as folding eye lids they seek. Normal oriental lids are smooth and uncreased while western eyes close sort of concertina fashion. The op was a two minet job with a couple of stiches....
 
If the operation was to make their eyes more western wouldnt that involve some sort of skull reconstruction? I think I heard about asians making their eyes more like westerners but I suppose it must be what sidecar_jon spoke about.
Those cases you are talking about are slightly different to the tongue surgery tho, I guess the eye operation is more superficial where as the tongue operation is so they can be more understood when they speak. I personally dont have problems understanding asians speaking english but I can see how some of them might want this rectified.
However it makes me wonder would it be at the expense of their own native tongue??
If so It seems like quite the sacrafice, wouldnt you agree?
 
Clive James did a TV series about Japan some years ago in which he described through tears of mirth how Japanese women were having silicone implants in their buttocks to give them rounded, Western-looking backsides instead of flat Oriental ones.
 
I wonder what that feels like to sit down?
Like having your own personal cushion with you 24 hours a day.
 
Immigrant

Immigrants' children who are full-blooded but raised in an English speaking culture have no difficulty speaking Engllish, so this is obviously a scam, or a hysterical craze. Has nought to do with tongues and all to do with exploiting insecurities.
 
Id say its more down to the way asian people use their tongues when they speak and it grows on them.
It would be the same if u tried to speak their language properly. You would have difficulties also but if you where raised to speak this way at an early age you wouldnt have any troubles.
Its the same with accents in the English language. I cant for the love of me do an american accent.
 
Yes

As I said, it's not their tongues at all, it's their training. Cutting the tongue is ludicrous. Re-Training the tongue is all.

I'm a victim, uh, benefactor of speech therapy, having lithped as a chide, (couldn't say "r" either), so I know what's possible.

I do a bang-on set of Yank accents, and Brit ones, too. And Cherman and French and...

And yes, we have a lovely Holy Grail of our own, thanks.
 
When my sister was learning to speak Welsh, she was told by her teacher that she would never be able to pronounce some Welsh words correctly no matter how long she tried for. Apparently it's all to do with learning a set of tongue movements when young, and the tongue is more malleable. As an adult, you're pretty much stuck with what you learned to do with your tongue at an early age.
I lisp too Frater, (slightly), and have had lots and lots of elocution lessons which didn't work. My tongue is slightly too long apparently.
 
I've read that young children are capable of making any sound in any language, but as they grow older they lose the ability to use those sounds not used by their native language.

This is a good reason to teach children other languages as early as possible.
 
Teeth and Tongue

Beak - My lisp was more a matter of improper positioning of tongue, and rather misaligned teeth, and a narrow mouth, than of too long a tongue. In the case of too long a tonuge, surgery might be effective.

Oh, and my mispronuncation of words stemmed from poor hearing. I have trouble discerning sibilants, percussives, and plosives. Aside from having had too many ear-aches as a child, which has hurt my heariung, I permanently shifted the hearing of my left ear when, as a toddler, I decided one day to see what the sound of my bulb horn on my tricycle sounded like before it came out of the horn. LOL Broke my eardrum and passed out, but the eardrum mended, leaving a scar, and hearing shifted upward toward the higher frequencies. There are some frequencies, in music for instance, that I simply cannot hear. Some electronic alarm clocks, or those tiny chirping beeps watches and cellular telephones make, go unnoticed by me as often as not. Also, it's fascinating to me what comes out of songs I know by heart when I play them on different machines, which give slightly different frequency responses. Sometimes I notice entire new lines of music in them.

rynner - Yes, I've read about that, too, and in fact my wife wrote one of her master's theses on Third and Subsequent Language Acquisition, which included much of that research. It's amazing that all children, barring physical defects of course, can make all the sounds of all the languages of Earth, yet gradually learn to pare down their repertoire to only the few needed around them at the time. Certainly if we exposed children to many languages as infants and toddlers, they'd retain abiliities and make the world a much more integrated place.

And now we know why that's not allowed or encouraged, eh?
 
I for one would want convincing that cutting was a neccessity, but if fraterlibre can be so categorical that it is not, I hope she has good reason. If a scam is in operation, and people are being mutilated in order to get money from them, then that should be exposed. Of course this can be difficult to do in ideal circumstances, but if the issue has been forced into one of black or white, and it isn't really, then it's to the scammers great advantage.
Is it possible that infants might be able to achieve western pronunciation but mature adults can't? Or maybe in theory they could, but the time and application required would mean that most regarded it as a practical impossibilty. Or what if in fact the majority of adults could achieve it reasonably easily but nonetheless a minority couldn't?
Yet, the scammers promote surgery for all. Some get a 'good deal ' but most fall for the scam and get mutilated for their cash.
'It is totally unneccasary' is the cry. To which the scammers produce evidence showing it is - they can cherry-pick thanks to those who forced it black/white. It hands the debate on a plate to the scammers, losing any credibilty as real people vouch for the benefits to their lives and medical evidence proves surgery really was essential. And you liberal westerner just want to stop this person from controlling their own life, what do you know you patronising....

My point being that a successful lie usually employs a bit of truth , to be paraded, not just to support the lie, but to show that the other side are wrong and not to be trusted. Refuse to acknowledge that bit of truth and you are their biggest assets.

But often its more important that we demand credit for our enlightenment in an immoral world, than it is to live in a better world oblivious to our just how enlightened we are. Things might not change but at least we've shown passionate we are about wanting change. And after all, that's been the real goal.

They may have a limited case. Be certain of your facts or bye bye limits.

So faterlibre, you already have a life, do you need to control another, because you hate capitalists, or con-merchants, or painful memories of a childhood lisp? , or as I hope, you really do have the complete set of facts?
 
A Blur

I see my screen name mentioned, but beyond that? Not a clue.

Anyone?
 
I bet you haven't a clue. Or that you have bothered to even read it. Still, I hope that won't you from deciding what it means and having absolute certainty in judging it.
 
Re: Teeth and Tongue

FraterLibre said:
rynner - Yes, I've read about that, too, and in fact my wife wrote one of her master's theses on Third and Subsequent Language Acquisition, which included much of that research. It's amazing that all children, barring physical defects of course, can make all the sounds of all the languages of Earth, yet gradually learn to pare down their repertoire to only the few needed around them at the time.
I said exactly the same thing before Rynner did. I feel like the woman on the fast show that no one notices. :hmph:
 
surgery

I have lived in Japan some time,
and met a girl who had some tissue under her tongue
remuved to speack better spanish!
Also they have ops to get rid of the epicanthal fold,
thats the piece of skin on the inner side of the eye.
sakina
 
Moderators?

Perhaps a moderator understands what little mikey seems to be up to?
 
Perhaps a moderator understands what little mikey seems to be up to?
I don't know. But, he eats imaginary sandwiches and then denies it.
 
Very Sorry

Originally posted by beakboo -- I said exactly the same thing before Rynner did. I feel like the woman on the fast show that no one notices. :hmph:


Beakaboo -- I'm so very sorry, my fault entirely. I was responding to the last similar point made, and certainly didn't mean to disresepect your excellent contribution. No harm intended, okay? In fact, it was your post got me thinking, and rynner's that opened the floodgates.
 
Re: Moderators?

FraterLibre said:
Perhaps a moderator understands what little mikey seems to be up to?

I've directly asked him on here, but didn't get too far.

And nor will he if he continues in this particular direction.

Stu
 
The tongue operation is likely to be a scam. There was an article in New Scientist about 2 weeks ago with Japanese research that shows Native Japanese speakers cannot find a diference between R and L. Scans showing the 2 sounds were actually indistinguishable inside their brains. English speakers braind showed distinct and diferent peaks for the 2 sounds.

But quite where that leaves Jonathan Woss, I don't know.
 
Early Exposure

Earlier exposure to properly pronounced English -- what ever that may be, and I'm not advocating Beeb Speak -- would allow the Japanese to formulate the recognition patterns in their brains.

Incidentally, recognizing phonemes is a matter of hearing first, THEN learning tongue positions and so on.
 
intaglio said:
But quite where that leaves Jonathan Woss, I don't know.
Bragging about the size of his willy, as usual.

Or should that be wirry?
 
Sorry fratelibre if I offended. It was base instinct. I recognised immediately we shared our source of information and worried in case you usurped my plans. I hope to do a lecture tour later this year and didn't want competition from what was obviously another student of 'Tin-Pot Psychiatry' (part four out this Friday). But I now extend the olive branch and would value your opinion on when to kick off my tour. Once I've got part 8 or wait a bit? I feel like I'm ready now but I don't want to be caught out.
 
The Kikuyu tribe in Kenya have the same difficulty with R's and L's as do the Japanesse. However this seems to only occur with those brought up speaking Kikuyu (the language) as a first language. Those brought up with a mixture of Kikuyu, Swahili and English (of which there are many) don't have this accent. So my thoughts are that its culture rather than physical.

On a lighter note..

There is a town in Japan called Kumamoto. In Swahili, Kuma is virgina and Moto is hot!

All Kenyan's who go to Japan make sure they get photographed outside the 'KUMAMOTO' bar in Tokyo.


Mr. 'Saparro' Lutz
 
Language Equivalents

One must marvel at such coincidences. What does Kumamoto mean in Japanese, anyone know?
 
Dont know what Kumamoto means but Last time I was in Hong Kong I had the pleasure of walking down WAN KING path. It was full of its ups and downs ;)
 
EEk

LOL - One dreads seeing the British tourist photographs taken THERE, eh?

(It's just me thumb, mum.)
 
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