Something I’ve noticed throughout my language learning journey has been that there is a general difference in how clearly I understand speakers of foreign languages, be it in French, Swedish or even English.

When straining to listen to pick up every word a foreign language speaker is saying, so as not to misunderstand, I can’t help but notice that it is much easier to clearly hear a female voice than it is a male one. In addition, I’ve also found that the older a male voice gets, the harder it becomes to understand.

I’m sharing this because I saw an article on the BBC News site claiming that voice recognition struggles more with male voices, here: Computers find male voices ‘harder to recognise’ and think that it could be potentially useful information to prepare yourself with in your language learning.

The article mentions the Edinburgh and Stanford University researchers finding that men make “umm” and “ah” sounds more frequently. But it’s not only this, in my experience; it’s also the lower tone blends words together in a way that if you don’t previously know the sound pattern of what is being said, it can be very hard to interpret it in a “dialogue” situation.

So, when next speaking to a male French speaker, consider standing on his toes while you speak – it might make his French a little bit clearer. For you, at least.