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Brain injured wakes up speaking German | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| zorglub Pentaglot Senior Member France Joined 7000 days ago 441 posts - 504 votes  1 sounds Speaks: French*, English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: German, Arabic (Written), Turkish, Mandarin | Message 1 of 15 19 April 2010 at 10:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/croatia/758 3971/Croatian-teenager-wakes-from-coma-speaking-fluent-Germa n.html
I wil be longing for more data The girl, from the southern town of Knin, had only just started studying German at school and had been reading German books and watching German TV to become better, but was by no means fluent, according to her parents. Since waking up from her 24 hourcoma however, she has been unable to speak Croatian, but is able to communicate perfectly in German.... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 2 of 15 20 April 2010 at 12:49am | IP Logged | ||
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It's surprisingly common, in as much as any brain injury is common. The statement about the case being "so unusual" I must imagine was down to them not being sure how the brain injury itself occurred.
The family of brain injuries in question is known as "aphasia", meaning a loss of language -- from Greek meaning "without utterance", according to etymonline.com . In this case we're looking at "selective aphasia", the loss of one or more language but not others. Through various types of aphasia, they've managed to establish that there is a single part of the brain that deals with semantics (interpreting meaning in language) but two areas that deal with syntax (grammar and other structures). One of these two deals with all native languages, the other deals with all late-learned languages. We believe this is true because selective aphasia always deals with one set or the other -- you don't lose 1 native language and 1 adult learned language and keep another native language and another adult-learned language, no, you lose all native languages or all adult learned languages. Now in this case, I think the paper is overstating things. (Not unheard of for the Telegraph....) "The girl, from the southern town of Knin, had only just started studying German at school..." This sounds like a very recent beginning, but then they go on to say: "...and had been reading German books" If she'd been reading books, she must have had a reasonable grasp of most of the grammar. I think the biggest lesson from this case is that it is that the learner's biggest obstacle is the automaticity of the native language. The urge to speak in the native language is often too loud for us to hear the target language beneath it. It's working out how to shut it up that is the problem. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Delodephius Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Yugoslavia Joined 5403 days ago 342 posts - 501 votes Speaks: Slovak*, Serbo-Croatian*, EnglishC1, Czech Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 3 of 15 20 April 2010 at 2:19am | IP Logged | ||
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Excuse me as I go to find myself a brick. :-)
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| drowssap Newbie United States Joined 5401 days ago 9 posts - 16 votes Speaks: English* | Message 4 of 15 20 April 2010 at 4:36am | IP Logged | ||
Can I come along with you? :D 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kyssäkaali Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5553 days ago 203 posts - 376 votes Speaks: English*, Finnish | Message 5 of 15 20 April 2010 at 3:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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I almost want to say I wish the same would happen to me, but I know I'll jinx myself and end up in a car accident or something when I leave the house today.
And yeah, I've heard of this happening before... a lot. The last was a guy from I believe the Czech Republic who crashed his motorcycle and woke up speaking perfect English for like an hour and then forgot it all once he had recovered. The brain is very strange. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| andee Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 7077 days ago 681 posts - 724 votes 3 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Korean, French | Message 6 of 15 20 April 2010 at 4:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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Maybe this is why people can speak more fluently when drunk ;)
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| brian91 Senior Member Ireland Joined 5444 days ago 335 posts - 437 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 7 of 15 20 April 2010 at 4:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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Amazing. I was dreaming of this happening to me earlier because I want to be fluent in
German so much. Nice. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ruskivyetr Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5481 days ago 769 posts - 962 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Polish, Modern Hebrew | Message 8 of 15 20 April 2010 at 5:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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If I became a monolingual European I couldn't be happier. The simplicity of the Englisch language is just annoying. Edited by ruskivyetr on 20 April 2010 at 5:04pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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