Both my parents are/were (dad is retired now, mother still teaches) University German professors for over 40 years each. Both of them have claimed for years that they can spot the music majors in the first day of class just by noticing how much better at pronunciation they are than the other students. Neither of them have done anything serious with their observations beyond notice that their musician students are often far better in the language than the non-musicians. It's anecdotal for sure. But it's quite a lot of anecdotes, for whatever that's worth.
It's also worth pointing out that a better pronunciation from a set of students can skew the teacher's view of the students' actual abilities in the language. That is, two students could have roughly identical mechanics, vocabulary, etc., but the student with better pronunciation will be perceived as having a better grasp of the language. You can argue that the way the words sound is a part of the language, so this isn't really a skew. But you get my point. On paper, they are the same; in speech one comes across as better.
Vocal music major here. It is quite likely that by the time they reach university age, students who are majoring in vocal music have had years of experience singing in a variety of languages. These would typically be Latin, Italian, French and German, along with their native language. This might include choral and solo performance experience.
I suspect they have a combination of experience, learned 'coachability', and a greater than average awareness of how to produce the correct sounds.
Anecdote: I'm an English speaker, and traveled to The Netherlands on business a few years ago. It was my impression that just about all the Dutch speak English ( and a few other languages ) and it is very difficult for a non-native speaker to attempt to engage them in a conversation in Dutch. They will usually just flip over into English. After a bit of practicing on the plane, I was able to do a few things like order tickets for a movie, and some snacks, and even order food in a restaurant in Dutch (I cheated a bit here, it was a Mexican place, so all the food was in Spanish :) ). It is possible they were just being polite, but my perception was that I came off like a maybe-fluent non-native speaker. In fact I knew about 20 words, but I had a pretty good accent.
they can spot the music majors in the first day of class just by noticing how much better at pronunciation they are than the other students
It makes sense. I can see at least two explanations. First musicians are used to listening to sounds in order to reproduce them accurately. Second, less obvious reason, is that they are less shy to "perform". Maybe I'm wrong and generalizing my own case, but I think that sometimes people are just too shy to work on their accent. As kids, we used to make fun of those that were trying to have a correct accent.
It always blows my mind to listen to songs from my childhood, which was before I learnt to play music. When I was a kid I was effectively tone deaf– didn't recognize pitches, harmonies, bass, etc. Now I hear the nuances, and it's interesting to look at old things with sharper eyes. Makes sense that it would affect language skills.
My personal experience definitely agrees with this. I think it might have something to do with a "trained" ear or a better discernment or attention paid to small variations in sound.
Hm, that's interesting. I've been a musician since I was in middle school (not super-skilled, mostly recreational) and I took German as an undergraduate. All my teachers always complimented my pronunciation, and even comparing myself to other students in the class I was definitely better at it. I was pretty terrible at the language altogether though; I'd be hard pressed to do anything more complicated than ordering a beer and I wasn't much better when I was actively learning it.
Pronunciation, spelling or grammar shows an ability to discriminate and classify things with precision. It's not a strong case, dyslexia for instance deceptively fooled caretakers into thinking one was subpar when he/she was not, but it still is a very good sign.
I play the piano and the guitar and I am great at pronunciation (Italian, French, German) but I have miserable word recall and I can barely hold a conversation in these languages. I would definitely say this is true.
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Both my parents are/were (dad is retired now, mother still teaches) University German professors for over 40 years each. Both of them have claimed for years that they can spot the music majors in the first day of class just by noticing how much better at pronunciation they are than the other students. Neither of them have done anything serious with their observations beyond notice that their musician students are often far better in the language than the non-musicians. It's anecdotal for sure. But it's quite a lot of anecdotes, for whatever that's worth.
It's also worth pointing out that a better pronunciation from a set of students can skew the teacher's view of the students' actual abilities in the language. That is, two students could have roughly identical mechanics, vocabulary, etc., but the student with better pronunciation will be perceived as having a better grasp of the language. You can argue that the way the words sound is a part of the language, so this isn't really a skew. But you get my point. On paper, they are the same; in speech one comes across as better.
Vocal music major here. It is quite likely that by the time they reach university age, students who are majoring in vocal music have had years of experience singing in a variety of languages. These would typically be Latin, Italian, French and German, along with their native language. This might include choral and solo performance experience.
I suspect they have a combination of experience, learned 'coachability', and a greater than average awareness of how to produce the correct sounds.
Anecdote: I'm an English speaker, and traveled to The Netherlands on business a few years ago. It was my impression that just about all the Dutch speak English ( and a few other languages ) and it is very difficult for a non-native speaker to attempt to engage them in a conversation in Dutch. They will usually just flip over into English. After a bit of practicing on the plane, I was able to do a few things like order tickets for a movie, and some snacks, and even order food in a restaurant in Dutch (I cheated a bit here, it was a Mexican place, so all the food was in Spanish :) ). It is possible they were just being polite, but my perception was that I came off like a maybe-fluent non-native speaker. In fact I knew about 20 words, but I had a pretty good accent.
It makes sense. I can see at least two explanations. First musicians are used to listening to sounds in order to reproduce them accurately. Second, less obvious reason, is that they are less shy to "perform". Maybe I'm wrong and generalizing my own case, but I think that sometimes people are just too shy to work on their accent. As kids, we used to make fun of those that were trying to have a correct accent.
It always blows my mind to listen to songs from my childhood, which was before I learnt to play music. When I was a kid I was effectively tone deaf– didn't recognize pitches, harmonies, bass, etc. Now I hear the nuances, and it's interesting to look at old things with sharper eyes. Makes sense that it would affect language skills.
My personal experience definitely agrees with this. I think it might have something to do with a "trained" ear or a better discernment or attention paid to small variations in sound.
Hm, that's interesting. I've been a musician since I was in middle school (not super-skilled, mostly recreational) and I took German as an undergraduate. All my teachers always complimented my pronunciation, and even comparing myself to other students in the class I was definitely better at it. I was pretty terrible at the language altogether though; I'd be hard pressed to do anything more complicated than ordering a beer and I wasn't much better when I was actively learning it.
Pronunciation, spelling or grammar shows an ability to discriminate and classify things with precision. It's not a strong case, dyslexia for instance deceptively fooled caretakers into thinking one was subpar when he/she was not, but it still is a very good sign.
I play the piano and the guitar and I am great at pronunciation (Italian, French, German) but I have miserable word recall and I can barely hold a conversation in these languages. I would definitely say this is true.