Foreign languages and voice

[RomeoEcho]

I'm curious about anyone who is working/worked on their voice and also studied a foreign language. I am living part-time-stealth in a country other I grew up in and am learning the language. I've also been working on my voice though. And I've noticed that in English my voice feels really fake and not very passable (though it seems to work) but in my second language, my voice is still really high. I don't know if it's the specific language or if I just can't keep track of that many things at a time, or something else entirely. I do need to be able to drop my voice in both languages, so I'm wondering if anyone else has noticed this before.

[MugwortPsychonaut]

Heh, I'm on the opposite end of the same boat! J'apprends le francais, and I find my voice is a tad lower in French. I have to make more of a conscious effort to "sound feminine." One would figure the opposite would be true, thanks to stereotypes, but no-oooo.

[AndrewB]

Depending on the language, the inflections might make you more prone to using a higher tone—I've noticed that Slavic languages, and especially Chinese, Japanese, etc. languages (all under the Sino-Tibetan branch, I discovered) naturally require more fluctuation, at least from what I've heard. Especially in Chinese, where tone influences the meaning of certain sounds/phonetics. Studying Spanish, I haven't found as much necessity for a huge range of voice. What is your second language, out of curiosity?

[RomeoEcho]

It still takes a fairly conscious effort for me to speak lower even in English, and I'm not terribly consistent with it, at least to my ears.

I'm learning Chinese, which sounds like it may be part of the problem. I've been studying for about four months now (?). Tones have been really tricky for me in general, I can't even hear them a lot of the time let alone reproduce them. Initially I wasn't that concerned about the voice, but as I'm getting to the point of using more and more Chinese in daily life, and becoming more deeply stealth, it's starting to bother me. Also, I consider learning the language an accomplishment (and makes life so much easier) so I don't want to be afraid to use it.

[AndrewB]

Mad respect for learning Chinese, I don't think I could do it; I'm one for the romantic languages all the way. It may just be in your head, for the most part, as it's hard for us guys to really deepen our voice without T (although some guys on here have had success). Maybe a voice trainer could help you find the same range you're acquiring in English, but in Chinese?

[Mado G]

Learning Chinese as an L2 requires explicit attention to pitch and tonality--seems like a complementary skill to me!

Je trouve que quand je parle le français, ma prosodie varie beaucoup que quand je parle anglais. Et oui, souvent j'utilise l'haut registre.

With French, it's hard to know what to attribute this to. Artifact of L2 learning? Ingrained cultural stereotypes?

[smdh]

I'm curious about anyone who is working/worked on their voice and also studied a foreign language. I am living part-time-stealth in a country other I grew up in and am learning the language. I've also been working on my voice though. And I've noticed that in English my voice feels really fake and not very passable (though it seems to work) but in my second language, my voice is still really high. I don't know if it's the specific language or if I just can't keep track of that many things at a time, or something else entirely. I do need to be able to drop my voice in both languages, so I'm wondering if anyone else has noticed this before.

I have an answer for you!

It falls in the "something else entirely" category haha.

This happens because the more confident we are in something, the more authority we feel. This authority is usually translated as a deeper tone of voice, regardless of gender. As a second language learner myself, I also notice my Spanish has a kind of lilt to it, which makes total sense--I'm not very confident in my fluency and this is reflected in my tone.

There's a real psychology to this, of course. It kind of extends to why we have that same lilt when asking a question. We're giving up authority when requesting something and in that way sort of acknowledge the power dynamic and appeal to it using a mechanism our brains tell us to (raise your voice so you can mimic the cries of a baby and your subject will be more likely to appeal to you based on their evolutionary wiring to sate an upset child, etc, etc, I dunno  )

[Mado G]

It kind of extends to why we have that same lilt when asking a question. We're giving up authority when requesting something and in that way sort of acknowledge the power dynamic and appeal to it using a mechanism our brains tell us to (raise your voice so you can mimic the cries of a baby and your subject will be more likely to appeal to you based on their evolutionary wiring to sate an upset child, etc, etc, I dunno  )

That's an interesting observation, but not all languages express interrogatives this way. (Newar is an example)