Thanks Andre. The Chinese word huáng, meaning both brown and yellow, is a fascinating example of how our perception of reality is intricately shaped by the language we learn.

A native Japanese speaker does not hear the difference between the English 'r' and 'l' sounds simply because of the way they learned language.

English speakers do not hear the difference between Chinese aspirated consonants and unaspirated consonants. English, Japanese, and Chinese speakers all perceive the reality of sound differently due to the language they were taught.

Who is perceiving reality as it is? No one.