I just thought of something while reading CoS.
The use of the chamber of secrets seemed a bit silly. Think about it.
It takes about three chapters to do the chamber of secrets in the second book, so how come Ron and Hermione (Neither of which can speak Parseltongue and Ron magically was able too in a few goes.) can easily go in, grab a Basilisk fang, use brooms to come back up and find Harry again with no difficulty whatsoever.

yeah i agree that the chamber was done a little too easily but there was more important stuff going on at the same time so if you made it harder than that it would of had gotten too long and too confusing...and we couldn't really see what was going on because we're supposed to follow harry around

yeah i thought the chamber thing was a bit of a joke myself...first of all there was a cave in so howd they get passed that?..also about ron speaking parseltounge wasnt impressed lol and at the end of book two doesnt dumbledore say that they sealed up the chamber so no one could get in...i take it they put lots of enchatments etc on there and i would say other teachers did aswell not just dumbledore

So silly!!!
Ron speaking parseltounge??
If it was that way anyone could do it.

the chamber of secrets was to easy, but as someone already said there were more important thigns going on...and ron did here harry say open to the horcrux so it wont be to hard to do it again if you have the general idea how to say it, and about the cos being caved in dont you remember harry and ginny ebing on one side, and ron on another but ron moved most of the rubble in the way. so they would have a way to get in and out if they have brooms. but it makes sence nto to go into that since thats ron and hermiones story and were not reading the book for there story

come on, i thought it was really good! parseltongue isn't like something where you need to have the magic within; it's basically another language. have you ever repeated a language out loud and had someone understand it? that happens ALL the time! so that's basically the most important thing he needed! ron was much older now and i'm pretty sure he vividly remembered their dark adventure down there, so i'm sure they made it alright. and then they could remove the rubble w/ basic locomotor charms, and with hermione there i'm pretty sure it probably took about 5 seconds. then they tore off teeth from an already decaying snake! it really isnt a huge deal.

I understand how some could think that it was a bit too easy but since there was no closure on the status of the Chamber it really is up to our imaginations. Do you think that DD would have sealed it off completely, knowing that one of the few methods to destroy Horcruxes was contained there? I have a hard time believing that he had the foresight to know that Ron would leave the Trio or that Harry would know that he needed to die yet not know that they would seek Basilisk venom.

I don't get your guys' concept of Parseltongue... Seriously, anybody can speak it if they put out the time to learn it. But the problem was that the only family that could speak parseltongue were the Gaunts, and they would share their hidden language when Snape washes his hair...

And Dumbledore knew that Snape would give them the Sword, which could destroy Horcruxes. So there wasn't really a need for the Chamber of Secrets...

And you guys are forgetting that Harry had to confront Riddle, kill the Basilisk AND destroy the Horcrux. And Ron and Hermione had to rip out some teeth, AND they had brooms...

As much as I love Ron, I thought it was pretty weird and unexpected how he could suddenly speak Parseltongue right out of thin air. I thought being a Parselmouth was some kind of gift that only the people connected with Salazar Slytherin could have, and Ron has absolutely no connection with him whatsoever. I do wonder why it took Ron and Hermione so long though hehe.

i don't think it was so much that ron spoke parseltongue...like it's one thing to hear a word and repeat it, everyone can do that, but actually being able to converse with snakes and understand what they are saying is something completley different.

I don't think it was unnatural that Ron was able to speak Parselmouth. For one thing, the "gift" part about parselmouth is that it comes naturally to Harry; having never even heard the language, he can understand it and communicate with snakes. What Ron said was merely a password. He had heard Harry say it and repeated what he said. He wasn't communicating with snakes, he was just opening a door. This is kind of a lame parallel to draw, but I think it will do me justice: It is a little like when we say "moo" or "meow" or "woof", etc. We hear the noises and repeat them. We are by no means able to communicate with these animals by saying them, but if a dog barking was a password, all we would have to do is imitate it, right? That's all Ron was doing, he was imitating it. I don't see anything wrong with that.

And of course it was easy for them, they didn't have a run in with the memory of an extremely evil and powerful wizard, have to slay a basilisk, and save an unconscious innocent victim from a terrible fate.. all they had to do was rip some fangs from an already dead snake. I think the Chamber of Secrets bit was perfectly logical, and it was effective, so I see no problems with it.

At first, I wasn't sure what to think about this, because during the Battle of Hogwarts, I had lost all track of time. But now that you mention it, it did seem a little odd. I agree that it seemed to easy to get into it, because first of all, for a thousand years, the chamber stays sealed, then Voldy and Harry open it, and it becomes so easy to use? Something is fishy about that. Could this possibly mean that Ron can speak Parseltongue?? Something definitely seems off here.

Ah well, i thought it was cool. So you can learn parseltongue. Interesting. It is a shame Harry can't anymore.

I think tthat JKR did that just to end the book sooner. I mean she could have a made it at least another chapter of ron and hermione explaining ot Harry that they needed to get into the cos. It doesn't really make any sense but then again it is only one word he has to say, its like saying hello in another language, you can if its only a couple words to rember, then ron could too, because it is only word. Im not really sure what to think abou tit. but it does seem odd.

i think that another chapter only to explain how ron and hermoine got into the chamber of secrets would have been too much. but i also agree with the others that it is a bit ridicolous, that ron could speak parseltongue from one moment to the other. it wouldn't be such ridicolous if harry would have said the words, but of course he wasn't there

ron can not speak parsle tongue he just repeted a word harry said if a snake was hissing ron would not be able to understand what it said and talk back to it all they had to was slide down the tunnel and rember some of the bricks had already been moved by ron in the second book for him and harry could escape so all they had to do was find the dead baslik steal its fangs then fly back up the tunnel tada then there done

I agree that it was just a way for JKR to get out of a sticky situation. She needed a basilisk fang to be retrieved and the only way to do that was for someone other than Harry to fetch it. Enter Ron Weasley.

From the way that Parseltongue is described in the books, it sounds like it is a gift, not a talent learned. Harry doesn't know how to speak Parseltongue, it comes to him natuarally and unintentionally in most cases. This makes it seem like something that you cannot learn which makes it seem highly unlikely that Ron would have been able to pick up some Parseltongue. Even if he had mimicked what he had heard Harry say previously, the chances of him getting it spot on correct are minimal. Seems all a bit far-fetched if you ask me.

This thought never settled in my head ever since I've read the Deathly Hallows. Even if Ron made the exact sounds as Harry could, that doesn't necessarily count as parseltongue. plus, doesn't Harry actually say the words in english but thinks about saying them in parseltongue so that's how they come out? I agree with whomever stated this about J.K. having to add something in for them to get all the horcruxes. If speaking like this was that easy, couldn't other people easily have gotten in before too? But then again, when Voldemort was posessing Ginny, didn't he get her to open the Chamber?

i think it's pretty believable, after all they didn't say that ron spoke perfect parsletonge, he just mimiced harry. Just becoause you make the sounds doesn't mean you neccasarily know the langue. True they could have explained it better, but the book is about harry so you have to follow him around.

I agree that the Chamber was easy to get into. But then again, when it was made it didnt matter if someone got in because there was a Basilisk inside to kill the intruders. You see getting in wasnt the problem, getting out was.

Parseltongue is not neccessarily a gift...DD speaks it too and I am pretty sure that he has learned it...Harry was a horcux..he didnt need to learn it it was just a "gift" because the part of LVs sould could speak it..as soon as it was out of him he lost that "gift"
moreover as many others said that now Ron just repeated a word
I can say several sentences in Bosnian and I have no clue what they mean..(my friend has taught me that) ...but Bosnians I dont know understand me..lol..

and generally of course COS was easy...the danger in COS was the Basilisk which is dead...no Basilisk no danger...I dont know why it should be hard to get in now that the snake is dead

I would have to say that since JK doesn't actually tell us the full story we don't know how long they were really gone. It could also said that since the three chapters in book two could have been the same in book seven but JK went with a different chain of events to tell. She stayed with what was happening to Harry. We don't really know how difficult or easy it was for Ron and Hermione.

At first when I read that chapter, I thought it was pretty lame that Ron just mimicked Harry and voila! he was in. Parsletounge is more of a gift than a language to learn--otherwise everyone could know it.
However, I could see it happening because of 3 things:
1. Not many people are close to speakers of Parsletounge, as they are so rare, so maybe if someone has heard it before, has enough time, and is desperately in need, they can manage a word.
2. The basilisk was gone--and it was the main attraction of the chamber. I think that getting in was not meant to be the biggest problem: the basilisk would kill anyone who got in, and the chamber itself was very well hidden.
3. The chamber has already been entered and the monster destroyed: It is very possible that whatever spells were used on it, such as needing to say open up in parsletounge, were wearing off.
Besides, if JK made it any more complicated in the book, she would have taken the focus off Harry, which would not have been so great. Like member of the pheonix said, We don't really know how difficult or easy it was for Ron and Hermione.

because there are clever kids well not so much ron but hermoine probably done her researcha dn stuff and new how to get in and out an stuff

I agree, I thought it seemed a bit easy, too..
But hey, absolutely everything about the books don't have to be complicated to thousand...
Ron had been there before...

I agree that it was a bit far fetched.


Here's a bit of cognitive psychology for you: when you're first born, you are able to perceive the difference between each and every phoneme (the smallest part of language; each individual sound). As the child learns their first language, they loose the ability to recognize phonemes that are not a part of their own language.

For example, have you ever noticed that for some people who have an Asian language as their first language, r's and l's are interchangeable? Yet for English speakers, it seems so strange because to us, the sound of "R" and the sound of "L" ("luh" vs. "ruh") are very, very different. Some speakers of Asian languages simply cannot tell the difference because the synapses (connections in the brain) that made r and l sound different when they were a baby are gone, while those that define the phonemes of their own language have been strengthened.

An example of something English speakers cannot hear is the "ch" sound of German languages, which as been described as something like a "kuh" sound, but at the back of the throat.

For children who grow up in bilingual houses, the synapses for both languages are retained. I always imagined Harry as bilingual: fluent in both English and Parseltounge. Considering the fact that snakes are not even human, the sound would be so different that I would suspect it would be incredibly difficult for Ron to reproduce the same sounds.

I'm not saying that JK should have had an understanding of this. Shes not a linguist, shes an author. But I still think its interesting, and because I know about it, I can never see it as anything other than pure silliness.


Also: Based on how quickly Aragog's venom was supposed to decay in HBP, I was suprised that the Basilisk venom was still potent.

Honestly, I don't feel like the fact that there was a lot going on at the time is a good excuse for such a poor plot device. It felt like a bit of a cop out to me.

Yes, I agree, I was none too happy with this part of the book. It just seemed that JKR was rushing and had run out of ideas. In the final throws of the book she had given Harry far too much to do that she needed Hermione and Ron to retrieve the Basilisk fangs/venom and using, as you put it, . It felt like a bit of a cop out to me too.

I like your description of how we learn language and retain that knowledge, it's a very good explanation of why this would have been difficult for Ron, unless of course he was a natural with languages, something that JKR omitted to tell us in all 7 books!

Well if you think about it Harry was looking for Ron and Hermione for a while during the time they were missing/in the chamber. And I'd expect the whole opening the locket thing was extremely traumatic for Ron given the circumstances so he would remember it very clearly and he remembered the Parseltongue word for open that Harry used on the locket. It's only one word he had to say. Plus there'd be nothing dangerous in the chamber to impede them now and they're 17 whereas Harry and Ron were 12 when they went in in COS.

I definitely agree, the Chamber was too easy to get in. I think that Jo crammed the ending of DH and it was too short. Ron can't speak parsletounge and he said it way too lightly for it to be hard. "The Chamber of Secrets of course!"

I have to go now. These are my thoughts though.
Ryan

To be honest I never thought about it that way before. It really doesn't make sence that Ron could make the sound because even if he did remember it; he couldn't quite replicate it.


As I said before (on a diffrent board) it doesn't make sence that Ronald could just replicate because, if you could, it wouldn't be considered all dark and mysterous. If you could just repicate it people would be able to learn it and it wouldn't be anything special.

I think that JKR could have done much, much better. She went agains her self alot: not "fallowing the rules" she had laied down earlier in the series. I think she rushed the end and didn't think much about how "relilistic" (for the HP world anyway)her plot line was. We all know that JKR is a fantastic writer but I think she sort-of copped out; didn't bother to create a new plot device.

Oh come on.

Rowling has described Parseltongue as a snake's language. Anybody can reproduce the sounds of a word in a language. If you heard me say, "Ouvrez la porte!" for instance, and then later you have to say the same thing, you'd imitate me, and you might have to make a few tries to get it right, but eventually you'll produce the same sound that I said, and any native Francophone will understand you. Even if you don't know what you're saying exactly, people who understand the language will, because the words require not what you're thinking to be words, but the correct pattern of sounds. Therefore, Ron hears Harry make certain sounds when opening the locket, and he tries to produce the same sounds. Once he produces the right sounds, as a language, his attempted Parseltongue should work.

Mod Edit: There's really no need to tell people to "come on". It's rude and confrontational, and if it doesn't create a hostile environment, it certainly creates an unfriendly one.

soleil, a few posts back provided a very nice Intro to Speech Perception, explaining why non-native speakers of a language can't reproduce the sounds of a word in an unfamiliar language. Human speech is comprised of a limited set of phonemes, the smallest unit of sound. Each human language is made up of a subset of these phonemes. Languages have varying number of phonemes in common with each other, as well as a number they don't share. At birth, babies have the ability to perceive all the phonemes of human speech. As they develop, they become able to perceive only the phonemes of their first language or languages, if they are bilingual.

Using French as an example, the two phonemes for the English "th" sounds as in "then" and "thin" don't exist in the French language. So monolingual French speakers, for whom French is their first language, can't perceive these sounds. They perceive these sounds as phonemes that exist in their language and have similar features, i.e. closest match. In the case of the two English "th" sounds, they are perceived as the sounds "d" and "t". Therefore if a monolingual French speaker, for whom French is her/his first language, tried to say either the words "then" or "thin" after hearing them twice, s/he would perceive and therefore produce the words as "den" and "tin". A small change in the perception and therefore production of just one phoneme can create a huge difference in the word produced and its meaning (den/then and tin/thin).

These difficulties in perception and production are across human speech, which has a limited set of phonemes. As stated,"Rowling has described Parseltongue as a snake's language, I think the emphasis should be placed on snake's, because the difficulties would be even greater across species, snake to human.

I wasn't aware that you had to sound 100% like a native speaker to get your message cut across.

Seriously, you can reproduce it close enough to make it understandable, even though there are sounds in French that don't exist in English. I know that the "th" sound doesn't exist in French. They always say a "z" or an "s." But you can still understand them.

How do you think people learn languages? They can't learn a language through private study. They learn it by listening to others speak the language. That is how you learned your first language, and it is how you learn all languages.

Go ask somebody who knows a language you can't speak, and ask them to say a sentence, then imitate them. I'll bet they'll be able to understand you. They might correct you a bit, but they'll know what you're trying to say.

I have heard of hundreds of situations where somebody gets stuck in a foreign nation, and have never learned the language. Within several years, they become fluent speakers, just through listening to the native speakers.

Mod Edit: And can you cut down on the sarcasm, please? I find your post quite rude. Please check your inbox soon.

I think that, to open the chamber, you would have to be spot on. I think that 'it' (the chambers magic ) would be to sensitive and would only open to a true parseltough. I also think that, because its a snakes launguage it would be harder to imitate than a foreign human language because they make noises that ,somtimes, humans are not phisicly capable of making, or reproducing well enough to fool the animal, as vega, of the lyre said.

My previous post about speech perception (how the acoustic signal is interpreted by the brain) and speech production was misunderstood. It wasn't about comprehension. My point continues to be that someone can’t accurately make sounds that s/he can’t perceive. Speakers can’t perceive sounds that don’t occur in their 1st language, i.e. they can’t discriminate between sounds that doesn’t exist in their phoneme subset and ones that are close that do, because they don’t "hear" the difference. Producing very small errors in the smallest unit of sound can change a word to something totally different. bolding mine
There are two "th" sounds in English, a voiced "th" as in "then" and a voiceless "th" as in "thin"
No, they don’t 'always say a "z" or an "s" '. That tends to be European French. In Canadian French, the perception and production of the voiced and voiceless "th" tends to be the "d" and "t" sounds respectively.

Understandable does not necessarily mean the correct word.
You can reproduce it close enough that you are saying a totally different word in English than the one intended
It’s about being unable to produce the correct word because you can’t perceive the sounds to be able to imitate it

I’ll try another example, using European French this time.
Pretend the English word "think" is the password to get into the Chambers of Secrets.
Ron is a monolingual French speaker and it’s his first language.
Ron is a naïve listener of English; he has heard the English word "think" twice in his life
Ron can't perceive the voiceless "th" sound because it’s not in his phoneme subset for French – he perceives the voiceless "th" as the "s" sound. Ron's brain identifies the acoutic signal for "th" as "s".
Ron can’t discriminate between "th" and "s" – they sound exactly the same to him.
Therefore, Ron perceives the word "think" as "sink". To him "think" and "sink" sound exactly the same.
"Sink" "Sink" "Sink" Ron imitates the word his brain has identified and tries to open the Chamber and it doesn’t open because it’s not the right word!
but to Ron it sounds the same as an English speaker saying "think".
Ron only knows the word is saying is wrong because the chamber is not opening
Because what he is saying sounds correct to him, he doesn’t know what part he is saying wrong, he doesn’t know to change his production to say the word correctly. He can’t open the chamber.

"Think" is made up of 4 phonemes, and changing 1 feature (placement of the tongue) of 1 of 4 phonemes (or 1 of 12 features) totally changes the word.
The difficulty of the task gets only exponentially more difficult if Ron is trying to imitate cross-species sounds.

Understanding the message is irrelevant to the point I was making that if the speaker can’t perceive a sound s/he can’t produce it.

You don’t. The reason that individuals are understood is because there is much more to communication than just pronouncing the words "100% like a native". A message is co-constructed by the speaker and his/her communication partner. The communication partner is using other cues to help her/him understand the message, such as redundancy of the English language, the context of the conversation, the other words in the sentence that are understood, that are used to make educated guesses about the message, familiarity with the speaker etc. as well as nonverbal cues such as facial expression, body language, gestures and pantomime (a world traveler favourite), and environmental cue such as objects photos etc.
1st language (or bilingual) acquisition is not like learning a 2nd language (especially learning a 2nd language after puberty). There is a development sequence to 1st language acquisition; speech sounds, language structures, pragmatics or use of language are acquired in an identified order at certain ages. Also unique to 1st language acquisition is a period of the most rapid vocabulary growth of a person’s life and a period of dysfluency.

Yes I totally agree that you can’t learn language in a vacuum. However, you can’t learn a language just by listening. It’s much more than just listening, it is an interactive process. You need to have a communication partner modeling the correct language structures, uses of language and speech production. But you also have to speak it, problem solve, try out your assumptions about the rules of language (e.g. young children overgeneralizing the regular past tense and saying things like "ated"). And speaking it also allows your communication partner to reinforce your correct language structures, speech productions, identify and correct your errors, and expand upon what you do say (e.g. teach new vocabulary item). Much of this is done incidentally by caregivers through the early years of first language acquisition.

With respect to speech and 2nd language learning, individuals have to be explicitly taught how to make those sounds that don’t occur in their language. Yes, they will still be able to communicate and yes, they can get their messages across, if they make substitution errors, i.e. continuing to substitute sounds that exist in their 1st language for those that don’t. However, there will also need to be more facilitation by their communication partners to understand their messages, there will be lots of communication breakdowns, where the message is not understood and lots of communication repairs that will have to be made by both partners. 2nd language learners won’t learn how to produce those sounds just by listening, because they can’t discriminate between correct and incorrect productions. They have to get explicit instruction on how to change the production of the sound, and feedback when their production is correct. They can then start using other cues rather than acoustic, such tactile placement of the articulators to know when they are making a correct production.

Discussing language learning is irrelevant because Ron was not trying to learn the language of Parseltongue, no one was teaching him Parseltongue. He was trying to imitate 1 word in isolation and say it to an etching of a snake on a tap, probably not the most facilitating of communication partners.

Imitating the sentence to the same person that originally said the sentence invalidates this task: the person is going to understand because s/he knows what the sentence should be. A better task would be to have an individual who speaks an unfamiliar language say a sentence and then you go to a 2nd speaker of that unfamiliar language (who hasn’t heard the native speaker say the sentence) and imitate the sentence to her/him and see if s/he understands it. But there are still variables that have to be taken into consideration, do the languages share a large number of phonemes or very few, are the words that carry the most meaning in the sentence the words that have phonemes that don’t exist in the 1st language is the listener going to be blind-folded so nonverbal and environment cues aren’t used etc. I doubt it would be conclusive evidence whether the message is understood or not.

Ah, Vega, I'm so glad I didn't include anything more than a brief introduction. You obviously have a much better grasp on the subject matter.

I would like to add that, yes, its possible you WOULD be able to imitate a specific word or phrase in another language (although not very easily, especially if you encounter a phoneme not in your native language) However;



I would like to point out that Ron didn't have several years. He heard the word twice.

Repeating a word accurately works much, much better when you hear it and repeat it immediately if you've only been exposed to it a few times. Ron doesn't seem to have the best of memories. I highly doubt that he would have been very accurate.



Even if you are able to imitate a word well enough for a native to understand you, you still have an accent. And thats BECAUSE, as Vega said, you are not able to recognize the phonemes of the language. Like what No George without Fred said, it seems to me that something created by Slytherin to recognize his heir based on the knowledge of PT wouldn't have accepted a heavily accented word, because it would mean that the speaker was not fluent in PT (and therefore, not Slytherin's heir, by his logic)

Also, its all about context clues, body language, and inflection in language comprehension, especially when dealing with a non-native speaker. A lot of times, if you hear a word in a sentence that sounds unfamiliar, you can guess what it is based on its basic sound and the context of the sentence its in. In this example, I would be able to understand that the word meant was "thin" even though the speaker uses the word "tin": "She was looking very tin." The speaker is obviously using a word that implys the meaning of "thin," not "tin" which is why I understand. "Open" is only one word, and has no sentence context. I think Vega's example about "think" being the pass word and Ron (being a monolingual French speaker, in this example) saying "sink" wouldn't fly.

IMPO, the only conclusions can be that Ron was either very, very lucky in getting the word just right, or JK's plot device was weak.

Yes, I agree with the above post. No matter how brilliant people say Ron is to defend him, he would not have been able to speak Parseltongue after hearing it a handful of times. If I remember correctly, Ron described Harry's Parseltongue in the Dueling Club as just a bunch of hissing. So my question is how could Ron duplicate a bunch of hissing 5 years down the road? And two, how can Ron tell what hiss means open? Personally I feel as if JKR felt that Ron had to do something important and useful before the series ended, and just ignored previous rules to accommodate this desire. For Ron I feel has been the least valuable of the trio.

Oh Ron...

I agree with Harry James Potter in saying that wouldn't be capable to remember the word after hearing it said one or two times. Ron, to be honest, (And I really really do love Ron) is no Hermione (as we all know) and he just doesnt' have a good enough memory to remember the word.

Harry was gone and Ron and Hermione had a plan to destroy the Hufflepuff Cup. If I typed, Meine Lieblingsfarbe ist Orange and told you beforehand I'm going to tell you my favourite colour, you would know what I said.

Ron knew Harry was going to say open in DH when Harry said,
Plus, Ron DID hear it in his second year. Ron told Harry to try and open the chamber in Parseltongue, and he did. Ron may have remembered that memory for a long time, as his best friend had a Dark Gift, by hearing it twice, perhaps he caught on.
As to how they got out, have you never heard of, Accio?
Well, thats my theory,