Photo by Des Récits on Unsplash
By Federica Lupis, https://www.federicalupis.com/
Author of "Fluent On The First Try" and "Why You're Not Fluent and How To Fix It"
Language trainer, interpreter and translator.
It was back in 1993 when I saw one of the films that would influence the course of my life. I was 7, and no, it wasn’t Sailor Moon: the movie. It was Weird Science with the extraordinary Anthony Michael Hall, Ilan Mitchell-Smith, Robert Downey Jr and a stunning Kelly LeBrock.
The film was about two nerds who used a computer to create the ‘perfect woman’. It was a fun, feel-good movie that I watched, again and again, with my sister Valentina, and it paved the way for more great movies like Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink and The Breakfast Club.
Weird Science left me with the feeling that ‘if I really wanted something, I could make it happen’.
A few days later, my dad told me a story. When he was young, he bought a ticket to go to Australia, but then he met my mum and gave up on his plan. He had always wondered if our life would be different had he left, but then realised everything would be different, including us.
I casually turned around and said: ‘Don’t worry, dad. I’ll go when I grow up.’
Fast forward to over twenty years later, and I’m sitting at my computer watching the amazing Sulphur-crested cockatoo enjoying the quiet of the lockdown on my balcony in Australia.
No matter where they come from, our beliefs are extremely powerful and can help us achieve things we thought to be totally out of reach.
But you may be wondering… what does this have to do with foreign languages?
Last week, I came across an article discussing the possibility of learning a language while we sleep. My first reaction was to roll my eyes and think: ‘Next thing, they’re going to sell magic filters that can make us speak Japanese’.
Then I stopped for a second and realised I didn’t know anything about this way of learning. Is there any research to support these claims? Has anyone ever had results?
I tried to get back the same wonder I had as a child and be open to ‘the impossible made possible’.
This article is the result of ‘me-trying-to-have-an-open-mind’. Enjoy!
1. Learning a language in your sleep. What does the research say?
In 2014, the Swiss National Science Foundation published their research on ‘sleep learning’ in the journal Cerebral Cortex.
The study involved sixty German-speaking students who had to learn some Dutch words they had never seen before at 10pm. After that, thirty students went to sleep while the vocabulary was played back to them. The rest of the students stayed awake and kept listening to the words.
Both groups were then reunited and tested at 2am. ‘Surprisingly’, the students who were allowed to sleep performed much better than those who weren’t.
Does this mean that we have all been wasting our time learning a language during the day? I’m not so sure.
a) While EEG measurements of the learners who were sleeping showed increased activity in the parietal lobe (a part of the brain involved in language processing), there’s no evidence that they were actively listening to the Dutch words.
Sleep plays a crucial role in learning and memory, so their parietal lobe activity could be something that happens to anyone who learns a language before bed.
b) The group that was allowed to sleep may have profited from a good rest and performed better than the sleep-deprived students…
Think about your school years – make the most of it if you’re still there! – did you do better in a test if you had a good sleep or if you went out with your friends until 3 am?
The research left me sceptical, so I had no choice but to try…
2. Learning a language in your sleep. What does Federica say?
Sorry to disappoint you, but it didn’t work out. Most likely, I didn’t want it to work.
When it comes to sleeping, I get as defensive as a boxer crab that uses sea anemones as boxing gloves. My bed is my kingdom, and my supreme code is simple: no lights and, above all, no noise.
The experiment went like this: I set everything up, I started listening, I got irritated, I began to dislike Japanese, and I stopped within five minutes. Obviously, I wasn’t the right candidate to take this test.
Which brings me to my final point…
3. Learning a language in your sleep. Why you should try it.
Do you have a remedy or strategy that you swear by but doesn’t work for anyone else?
Before you tried it, you may have felt like you were going to waste your time, but then the miracle happened: it worked!
By trying Sleep Learning on YouTube, you may fall asleep to the sound of foreign words and wake up to remember them.
I’m not being sarcastic; you won’t know until you try it!
To sum up:
1. Research shows a correlation between sleeping and better learning. However,
there’s still no evidence that it is possible to learn a foreign language while we sleep.
2. Federica is serious about sleeping and becomes very intolerant when she feels like her precious sleeping time is at stake.
3. Try to learn a language in your sleep and let me know how you go! Your experiment may help you improve your language skills and the lives of other language learners.
In my case, learning a language in my sleep was like putting soy sauce on ice-cream... a recipe for disaster!
Thanks for reading!
I’ll catch you all next month.
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