In phonetics, machines can just help us to consolidate our perceptual findings. We cannot always depend on experimental findings. It is unfortunate that, these days phoneticians rely solely on experimental evidence and they ignore other perceptual evidence. In fact many phoneticians these days do not know basic phonetic measures like Cardinal Vowels etc. When I asked the late Peter Ladefoged: “What do your students in American universities use if they want to refer to different vowel qualities in two or more regional dialects?” His answer was” “They compare formants, plotting on vowel diagrams!”

The reality of course is that native speakers (unlike language scientists and dedicated grammarians) generally don’t think about their language, they just use it. That means they tend to judge what is spoken by whether it “sounds right” or not. French gender is a good example and Adrian makes a good point about native speakers wincing.

Something like “ce maison” will be understood but it will clang in the ears of a native French speaker.

Although English does not have this gender accord feature, it is possible to approximate the effect using “this/these” (which, along with “that/those,” is one of the few examples where any kind of accord is demanded in English).

Say to any native English speaker “this children” and it will be understood but will induce some wincing because it just does not sound right. The effect is similar to my hearing “mon tante” in French!

While I’m at it, a fairly common French tendency (i.e., amongst native speakers) is to create accord where it is not actually necessary. For example, the number “quatre” is invariable, but you do hear things like “quatre-z-enfants” (vice “quatr’enfants”).

Sorry, I rambled on a bit there.

In Canada, “poutine” is a very popular fast food comprising (your arteries are probably already clogging up) fries topped with cheese curds then smothered in gravy.

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Edit: Can anyone read this? (Is it a Chinese character set?)