Waking Up With a New Language

Imagine waking up one day with the ability to speak fluently in a new language. With language learning programs, classes and tools touting their success rates and often times promising the seemingly impossible ("Learn in only 10 Days" (Pimsleur), "Learn a New Language in 4 Days" (Fluency Fast), "Learn 200 Words a Day" (200wordsaday.com)), any language learner has probably dreamed once or twice about waking up fluent without doing much work. Unfortunately, the circumstances surrounding one Croation girl's sudden ability with a new language were not ideal, to say the least. The 13-year-old girl suffered brain trauma and had been in a coma for 24 hours before waking up with the ability to speak in German, a language she was learning. However, she could no longer utter a word in her native tongue. Rumors suggested that she was "fluent" in German, although prior to the accident had only moderate skills in the language. A miracle? Nope, just an exaggeration. In this Discovery News article, the possibilities surrounding language and brain trauma are explained, and the results are in: the only way to learn a language is to actually learn it. So next time you are tempted to get out the Cliff's Notes and cram 500 words a day into your brain, remember - if it seems too good to be true, it probably is!

Find the article here:

Coma Victim's Language Ability Explained

Reading Lips...A Method for Learning the Sounds of a New Language?

Professors Yukari Hirata and Spencer Kelly of Colgate University have uncovered what could be the key to better learning when it comes to discriminating sounds of a new and unfamiliar language. One major challenge that occurs when individuals attempt to learn a new language after the "sensitive period," when language is most easily attained, is that the brain is not as open to hearing and understanding new sounds. This requires teachers to use additional methods to really help their language learners discriminate between the strange sounds and tones of a new language. This study, conducted by Hirata and Kelly, found that the lips and mouth may play a crucial role when it comes to picking up these new sounds. Whereas teachers often use their hands, big expressions and interactions to illustrate the meaning of new language, this could prove to be distracting for new language learners, at least in the beginning. "When it comes to learning speech sounds in a new language, it may be best to first focus attention just on the lips and mouth before taking in the entirety of a visually complex social interaction," says Hirata.

You can read more about this research here:

*Colgate Professors' Research Sheds Light on Foreign-Language Learning