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It’s True: Alcohol Helps You Speak a Foreign Language Better
The confidence gained from drinking alcohol – could help with more than just flirting with someone at the bar.
A new study has found that a low dose of alcohol can improve bilingual speakers’ ability to speak a second language.
While alcohol impedes peoples’ ability to remember and pay attention which may impair the ability to speak a second language, it also increases self-confidence and reduces social anxiety – which might be expected to improve language ability when interacting with others.
The aim of the study, conducted by researchers from the University of Liverpool, Maastricht University and King’s College London, was to test these competing predictions for the first time.
For the study, the researchers tested the effects of a low dose of alcohol on participants’ self-rated and observer-rated ability to hold a conversation in Dutch.
Participants were 50 native German speakers who were studying at a Dutch University (Maastricht) and had recently learned to speak, read and write in Dutch.
Each participant was randomly given either a low dose of alcohol, or a control beverage that contained no alcohol.
The dose of alcohol varied depending on a person’s body weight, but it was equivalent to under a pint (460 ml) of 5% beet, for a 70 kilogram male (154 pounds).
Then, each participant spoke with an experimenter in Dutch for a few minutes.
The conversation was recorded, and each participants’ foreign language skills were then rated by two native Dutch speakers who didn’t know if the participant had consumed alcohol or not (observer-ratings).
Participants also rated their own Dutch language skills during the conversation (self-ratings).
After analyzing the data, the researchers found that participants who had consumed alcohol had significantly better observer-ratings for their Dutch language, specifically better pronunciation, compared to people who didn’t have the alcoholic beverage.
Our study shows that acute alcohol consumption may have beneficial effects on the pronunciation of a foreign language in people who recently learned that language,’ says Dr Inge Kersbergen, a co-author of the study and a researcher at the University of Liverpool’s Institute of Psychology, Health and Society.
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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