A fascinating study has suggested that learning Chinese language makes you more musical.
Researchers, looking into why perfect pitch was rare in Europe and the US, found that learning to speak Mandarin and Vietnamese in your childhood helps to make you more musical. The study claimed that being fluent in the languages helps you have perfect pitch.
In a test on 203 music students for a perfect pitch, it was found that ethnic Chinese and Vietnamese students who were fluent in their parents' language scored highly, getting about 90 per cent of the notes correct on average.
"They did incredibly well. It was overwhelming," Professor Diana Deutsch, a psychologist who led the study, was quoted as saying by the New Scientist.
"In my experience, musicians in China don't regard perfect pitch as anything remarkable because it's very common," she said.
Those tested included 27 ethnic Chinese and Vietnamese students. The Asian students scored no better than white students if they weren't fluent in their parents' language.
According to the report in the Daily Telegraph newspaper, Mandarin, like Cantonese and Vietnamese, is a tonal language in which the pitch of a spoken word is essential to its meaning.
