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On why Koreans are good at SC. - Page 2

Blogs > Cheerio
Post a Reply
Prev 1 2 All
KaiserChuck
Profile Joined April 2011
United States79 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-11-20 11:35:32
November 20 2013 11:20 GMT
#21
On November 20 2013 13:41 itsjustatank wrote:
+ Show Spoiler +
On November 20 2013 13:06 Hilltop_Razorback wrote:
Show nested quote +
On November 20 2013 10:23 itsjustatank wrote:
next time anyone tries this line of reasoning again, think about how patently ridiculous the following statement is:

"clearly koreans have undergone extensive genetic selection and linguistic construction over at least the past 200 years to be superior at playing a video game that had its origin in 1998."

it isnt anything inherent in their genetics or even in their linguistics; it is a function of how much they are able to play the game.

I would respond that "clearly you have no idea that random chance is precisely the mechanism through which natural selection acts." Any leap in human ability due to natural predisposition to the new task inherently functions much as you described in your "patently ridiculous" statement.

When humans began using spears for hunting, for example. Some hunters were more effective than others with this new technology. Some were possessed of better eyesight, coordination or strength. It's not that certain humans evolved specifically to huck spears, it's just another manifestation of natural selection for a certain emerging trait valuable to the population.


I am making a distinction between the advances all human beings have made over the long course of history, which may or may not be applicable to how all of us can approach this new thing called 'video games,' and the dangerously racist implication that groups of people are genetically superior to others as if they are part of a different species.


You seem to be obsessed with qualifying evolution & finding racists. Nobody here has brought this up but you (twice). OP was talking about language, which is a function of culture. Not genetic bigotry.

I don't think Korean dominance in StarCraft is a function of any sort of genetic superiority. I do, however, entertain notions that there may be some cultural advantage at play. Whether it's the social acceptability of video games, or a difference in structure or function of the mind's passive processing or recall abilities (due to either language/thought pattern differentials, as discussed, or something deeper) is up for debate. Clearly the community finds the topic fascinating, as there is endless discussion.


On November 20 2013 18:33 Stratos wrote:
in my experience (as someone who knows korean) the problem with english subtitles is that Korean often features short structures that are difficult to translate into English (hence a lot more text).


Yeah this probably has more to do with the reason than anything else. This seems like mostly an east/west problem; one culture group prioritizes concepts or fundamentals that another disregards, so they have a one-or-two-syllable term to describe something that requires an entire sentence from the other. And vice-versa (which is why you sometimes see random English interspersed with foreign text, it's easier to adopt the English term & explain the meaning than repeatedly describe it in their native language).
Cheerio
Profile Blog Joined August 2007
Ukraine3178 Posts
November 20 2013 15:48 GMT
#22
On November 20 2013 13:06 Hilltop_Razorback wrote:
Show nested quote +
On November 20 2013 10:23 itsjustatank wrote:
next time anyone tries this line of reasoning again, think about how patently ridiculous the following statement is:

"clearly koreans have undergone extensive genetic selection and linguistic construction over at least the past 200 years to be superior at playing a video game that had its origin in 1998."

it isnt anything inherent in their genetics or even in their linguistics; it is a function of how much they are able to play the game.

What for most people is considered "chess intuition", maybe having a feeling for what the optimal move is in a given position, in some of these individuals becomes instant subconscious evaluation. In the same way that some rare mathematical prodigies can manipulate vast numbers in their minds seemingly without conscious thought, and have the answer simply appear in their mind, so too can these players evaluate complex positions subconsciously in the "chess node" that their brain has repurposed for this task.

Looks like somatic marker theory in practice. Every normal human being is capable of that kind of intuition (even a bad chess player would "feel" bad when confronted with the possibility of sacrificing a queen for nothing). It's just that when one practices something a lot, more and more patterns get learned and evaluated so it's easier for intuition to pick one up. And probably kids are much more effective at learning such patterns than adults and adolescents.
Chef
Profile Blog Joined August 2005
10810 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-11-20 16:47:42
November 20 2013 16:45 GMT
#23
I don't think SC in English, I think it in the language of StarCraft. I only translate the language of StarCraft to English because it is too gosu for most noobs like yourself to understand.

You could also take ye old Artosis point of view (from 2007), in which he decides Koreans are not as smart as foreigners, but they are more dedicated to practicing standard builds that give them an edge in that they don't have to think about what they're going to do they just do it. Although I don't necessarily agree with 2007-Artosis on that. [to be fair before someone thinks I'm calling Artosis racist, I mean that's what he said they prioritized compared to the top BW foreigners at the time]

I don't know about Korean, but in Japanese the subject of the sentence is dropped if they think the context is obvious (even in formal language). We do the same thing sometimes in very casual English, it just isn't very natural to read. You could make English as efficient if you wanted to -- could make english as efficient if wanted. Certainly we don't, but the meaning in your brain gets encoded the same way. You don't remember word for word what someone said, you remember the general idea of what someone said and then you reconstruct it in a logical way if someone asks you to. At least, that's what I'd guess. I'm no neuro-scientist and I doubt even neuro-scientists would know for sure.
LEGEND!! LEGEND!!
Xiphos
Profile Blog Joined July 2009
Canada7507 Posts
November 20 2013 19:46 GMT
#24
On November 20 2013 18:33 Stratos wrote:
Show nested quote +
On November 20 2013 08:00 Cheerio wrote:
I remembered watching some Korean interview with English subtitles and I could barely catch up, something that very rarely happens when somebody is speaking European languages with English subtitles. Clearly Korean speach is faster from a linguistic point of view.

Just out of curiousity, is this in any way a real fact or did you just randomly made it up? Because in my experience (as someone who knows korean) the problem with english subtitles is that Korean often features short structures that are difficult to translate into English (hence a lot more text).


Its the Asian language in general.

Asian language represents a word with the least amount of "syllables" as possible. Similar sound words have completely different meaning if it is followed by/follows a completely different "characters". Like in Chinese, there is a word of "Dian Hua" which means "Telephone", a simple two sounds/syllables representing 3 syllable one. So essentially Asian languages are 50% more efficient than English and thus 50% "faster".
2014 - ᕙ( •̀ل͜•́) ϡ Raise your bows brood warriors! ᕙ( •̀ل͜•́) ϡ
Stratos
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
Czech Republic6104 Posts
November 20 2013 19:53 GMT
#25
On November 21 2013 04:46 Xiphos wrote:
Show nested quote +
On November 20 2013 18:33 Stratos wrote:
On November 20 2013 08:00 Cheerio wrote:
I remembered watching some Korean interview with English subtitles and I could barely catch up, something that very rarely happens when somebody is speaking European languages with English subtitles. Clearly Korean speach is faster from a linguistic point of view.

Just out of curiousity, is this in any way a real fact or did you just randomly made it up? Because in my experience (as someone who knows korean) the problem with english subtitles is that Korean often features short structures that are difficult to translate into English (hence a lot more text).


Its the Asian language in general.

Asian language represents a word with the least amount of "syllables" as possible. Similar sound words have completely different meaning if it is followed by/follows a completely different "characters". Like in Chinese, there is a word of "Dian Hua" which means "Telephone", a simple two sounds/syllables representing 3 syllable one. So essentially Asian languages are 50% more efficient than English and thus 50% "faster".

Yeah I can see how that works considering a lot of Korean words is based on hanja. 50% seems like a pretty random number though, I assume that's just your estimation?
En Taro Violet
gg_hertzz
Profile Blog Joined January 2004
2152 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-11-20 23:59:18
November 20 2013 23:57 GMT
#26
This is just an excuse to not work hard.

And if the speed of the language is the key then India must be the land of sleeping progaming giants?
Xiphos
Profile Blog Joined July 2009
Canada7507 Posts
November 21 2013 01:22 GMT
#27
On November 21 2013 08:57 gg_hertzz wrote:
This is just an excuse to not work hard.

And if the speed of the language is the key then India must be the land of sleeping progaming giants?


Language probably don't have anything to due with gaming.

Case in point, Alliance in DotA2 is wreaking all the Chinese teams. I would say that its mostly about ethnics and infrastructure. But to hone that infrastructure, you need to have guys to build it and that's risks and dedication. And I'm afraid that North Americans don't rely on "getting good" to make a living. I would say that almost 100% of SC2 fans are foreigners and foreigners supports their country's heroes by watching them stream which is how the "professional gamers" earns their money and streamers' popularity is based upon their personality and less about their gameplay. So most of the foreign "professional gamers" don't have to aspire to be the "very best".

I would rather hang out with a foreign player

But I would rather look at Koreans as a role model.
2014 - ᕙ( •̀ل͜•́) ϡ Raise your bows brood warriors! ᕙ( •̀ل͜•́) ϡ
_-NoMaN-_
Profile Joined May 2011
Canada250 Posts
November 21 2013 06:22 GMT
#28
On November 20 2013 19:21 mizU wrote:
its the kimchi, guys
obviously the kimchi


Haha, you may be more right than you know. Kimchi is actually one of the healthiest things u can eat, as it it promotes robust gut bacteria, which is a factor in such things as mood, energy, focus, etc.

When people say 'it's cultural', that actually means a heck of a lot of things; and yes, food and language are some of them
Djagulingu
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
Germany3605 Posts
November 21 2013 13:51 GMT
#29
OP's thesis can be refuted easily by the massive amount of peruvians and other latinos that suck at this game.
"windows bash is a steaming heap of shit" tofucake
woreyour
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
582 Posts
November 21 2013 14:16 GMT
#30
here we go again

it just so happen there are a lot who plays it in korea, like football in brazil.

More people, lots ideas, much maturity, wow win.
I am so sexy.. I sometimes romance myself..
HeeroFX
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
United States2704 Posts
November 21 2013 15:23 GMT
#31
On November 20 2013 08:07 N.geNuity wrote:
it's because they had a bunch of 15-18 year olds who essentially dropped out of high school to play for 10 hours a day



It's really something more like this. Lots of players are going to school or working because they don't have a team house to live in and feed them while they play. However EG and root really should be a lot better then they are because they have a team house and things, by that logic. But seriously how many parents in the US would let you drop out of school to play video games, I hope zero.
Kleinmuuhg
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
Vanuatu4091 Posts
November 21 2013 18:42 GMT
#32
no because french people also talk really fast
This is our town, scrub
Lixler
Profile Joined March 2010
United States265 Posts
November 21 2013 22:45 GMT
#33
On November 21 2013 04:46 Xiphos wrote:
Show nested quote +
On November 20 2013 18:33 Stratos wrote:
On November 20 2013 08:00 Cheerio wrote:
I remembered watching some Korean interview with English subtitles and I could barely catch up, something that very rarely happens when somebody is speaking European languages with English subtitles. Clearly Korean speach is faster from a linguistic point of view.

Just out of curiousity, is this in any way a real fact or did you just randomly made it up? Because in my experience (as someone who knows korean) the problem with english subtitles is that Korean often features short structures that are difficult to translate into English (hence a lot more text).


Its the Asian language in general.

Asian language represents a word with the least amount of "syllables" as possible. Similar sound words have completely different meaning if it is followed by/follows a completely different "characters". Like in Chinese, there is a word of "Dian Hua" which means "Telephone", a simple two sounds/syllables representing 3 syllable one. So essentially Asian languages are 50% more efficient than English and thus 50% "faster".

What the fuck are you talking about? There's no such thing as "the Asian language," and having the least amount of syllables is by no means a common feature to all Asian languages. It's not even the case for Korean and Japanese, which as a matter of fact are capable of having words with absurdly high numbers of syllables (consider the Korean word for "hello" or "or" or "stapler"). Moreover, a language with high information density (i.e. having less syllables per information conveyed) is generally spoken more slowly. The reason Japanese and Korean are spoken quickly (which, indeed, they are) is because their syllables give you relatively little information. It takes less time to process a low-information Korean syllable, so Korean can be spoken more quickly without being too cognitively taxing. Mandarin, the language you cited, is more or less equivalent to English in these areas.

http://ohll.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr/fulltext/pellegrino/Pellegrino_2011_Language.pdf
therockmanxx
Profile Joined July 2010
Peru1174 Posts
November 26 2013 21:53 GMT
#34
So this thread its all about selective breeding humans and asian common language =)
Tekken ProGamer
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