Usually I am very good at guessing how someone’s voice will sound on first impression.  I think our brains have evolved over time to make judgment based on visual clues.  Little kids speak in different tones and volumes than adults or pubescent boys.  It’s just something I feel we are all accidentally trained in.

But, boy, was I wrong.  These skills were practically worthless abroad.  Somehow the combination of hearing foreign languages and new “types” of people threw me off.  So many times I was caught off-guard thinking, for example, that male panelist should have a lower pitched voice or child playing on the street should be shriekier.

Perhaps the new voices come from variations in food or physical build.  Certainly a part of it is cultural in that we repeat the inflections we hear and certain societal figures are supposed to vocally emphasize certain traits (e.g. slow, rolling wisdom of a grandparent or un-contained excitement of a parent over a child’s achievement).  And you’ll have to trust me that all this is more than accents and attitudes.  The best analogy I can think of is when you listen to a band for years and then find their newly released album is so different it’s hardly recognizable.  My ears enjoyed the shock in discovering new “instruments.”