Listening to: Old People 244 p -versus- Young People 720 p

[歐博思]

While I was having my scooter worked on the other day I was listening to the boss's father in 244 p resolution (think: Youtube video resolutions). It was just like a thick coating of fuzziness overall compared to the relatively clear 720 p
I get when listening to young people. 

 

Thoughts?

 

 

 

 

 

*This probably would've been better as a comment to an established thread, which admittedly I didn't look very hard for...*

[Hofmann]

You talking about phonology?

 

Ever heard a 16kbps .ogg?

[889]

Yes, it is like image resolution. Every once in a while you come across Chinese that just sounds crystal clear: you pick up everything.

 

I've also found it's often a function of age -- young kids can be very easy to understand -- as well as location; whenever arriving in Beijing I sometimes want to shout, "I can hear again!"

[Publius]

Probably something to do with frequency. To me female voice is like 720p.

And lolz to 889's "I can hear again!" Yeah, some regional accents require a lot of getting used to...

[歐博思]

Ever heard a 16kbps .ogg?

Googled it after you mentioned and it seems there are some formats that stay pretty clear despite the low bitrate? I definitely hadn't downloaded the right codecs to be talking with this guy though, because our conversation was 'buffering' every every other sentence: "Pardon? Didn't quite catch that..."

 

Probably something to do with frequency. To me female voice is like 720p.

I knew a girl back in uni who had trained to be a tv/radio host in China. In their classes they'd do all kinds of reading tongue twisters at speed. Well, I suppose she was pretty damn good at her coursework because she could talk like the wind. I remember one particular instance when a group of us were out together, she had said something very quickly and a bit long-winded, and I surprisingly understood almost 100%. Keep in mind this was 3-4 years ago when my listening was even worse than now.  I think you're on to something!