Training English and Chinese Listeners to Perceive Thai Tones: A Preliminary Report Ratree P. Wayland University of Florida Susan G. Guion University of Oregon The ability of native English (NE) and native Chinese (NC) speakers to identify and discriminate the mid- versus the low-tone contrast in Thai was investigated before and after auditory training. The variables under investigation were first language background and the interstimulus interval (ISI) of the presentation (500 ms vs. 1500 ms). The NC group outperformed the NE group in its ability to discriminate the two Thai tones under the ISI 500 ms condition before training and under both ISI conditions after training. A significant improvement in identification from the pretest to the posttest was observed in the NC group under both ISI conditions, but not in the NE group. These results suggest that prior experience with the tone system in one tone language may be transferable to the perception of tone in another language. Ratree Wayland, Program in Linguistics; Susan G. Guion, Department of Linguistics. We would like to thank Robert Sorkin and C. Douglas Creelman for their suggestion on data analyses and all participants in this study for their time and commitment. Many thanks also go to the three anonymous reviewers for their many helpful comments. This study was supported by a summer research grant to the first author from the Asian Studies Program at the University of Florida. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Ratree P. Wayland, Program in Linguistics, 4131 Turlington, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-5454. Internet: ratree@ufl.edu 681 Language Learning 54:4, December 2004, pp. 681–712