Without teaching him? This is exactly what happened to one Australian.

When a 22 year old Ben McMahon(Ben McMahon) woke up from a week-long coma after a car accident, he began speak Mandarin Chinese fluently.

"Everything was in a fog, but when I woke up and saw a Chinese nurse, I thought that I was in China", he said. " It was as if my brain was in one place and my body was in another. I started speaking Chinese - these were the first words I spoke".

According to the nurse, McMahon's first words were: " I'm sorry, nurse, it hurts here.".

To him it took him several days to learn to speak English again.

When his parents first came to see him at the hospital, he spoke to them in Mandarin, which shocked them.

Although the Australian had studied some Mandarin in the past and even visited Beijing, he had never spoken the language fluently until he woke up from his coma.

The incident itself occurred back in 2012, and after acquiring a new language, McMahon began to use his skills to good effect.

He led tours for the Chinese in Melbourne and also became the host of a popular Chinese show"Au My Ga", which helped Chinese expats better understand Australian culture.

Bilingual aphasia

This is not the only case where a person who has survived a brain injury or woken up from a coma has spoken a new language or accent.

· In 2013, a California man was found unconscious in a motel room. After he woke up in the hospital, he could only speak in Swedish.

· In 2010, a 13-year-old girl from Croatia woke up from a coma and spoke fluently in German, despite having just started learning the language before her brain injury.

Scientists attribute these cases to a phenomenon called " bilingual aphasia"Different languages ​​are stored in different parts of the brain, and if one part is damaged, a person's brain can switch to another language.

Bilingual aphasia is possible because learning a native and second language different types of memory involved. When a child begins to speak, his brain processes language like any other skill: walking, jumping, and other motor skills. Responsible for this procedural memory, and we perform the skills without consciously thinking.

When an adult or child learns a new language, it is responsible declarative memory. The brain learns language as a subject, be it mathematics, geography or history, by memorizing rules and facts.

Over time, as fluency develops, some of this knowledge moves into subconscious procedural memory.

Children who grow up in a multilingual family from childhood may store both languages ​​in their subconscious memory system.

Trauma or tumor may erase one language and leave the other.

How to quickly learn a language?

· Speak the language out loud from day one. Don't be afraid of incorrect pronunciation. The most important thing is to start practicing.

· Learn practice phrases first. If you're starting to learn a language, try to learn phrases that will be useful to you, such as "where is...?" to explain your basic needs.

· Don't focus strictly on grammar. Don't worry too much about grammar rules in the beginning; you can catch up on that later.

· Practice your language on Skype with native speakers. One of the best tools for learning a language is the Internet, especially video chats like Skype. With this free service, you can practice your conversation skills with native speakers from another part of the world.

· Listen to local radio stations. Another way to immerse yourself in a foreign language is to listen to a radio station in the country where that language is spoken. You can use the online collection her local radio stations from all over the world TuneIn.

· Check out the free ones online language tools, T such as, for example, Duolingo or italiki , where you can connect with native speakers for personal lessons.

· Be prepared to invest time and practice. A person who wants to learn a foreign language can achieve a good level in a few months by studying all day long, or in a year or two by studying 1-2 hours a day.

· Don't strive for perfection. Most beginners are too focused on reaching the final stage and often do not progress beyond the initial level. Just accept your mistakes and don't try to be perfect.

Did you know that people who awaken from comas can actually speak a foreign language? Yes, this is true, and it is scientifically called bilingual aphasia. It is thought to occur when one area of ​​the brain that controls language is damaged while another remains intact.

Scientists neurologists say that this happens relatively often, here are some of the most striking cases:

Woke up speaking Swedish

A man woke up in a hotel room in Palm Springs, USA. He had no idea who he was and spoke only Swedish. He called himself Johan Eck, but all his documents showed that he was born in Florida and his name was Michael Boatwright. And although he lived for some time in Japan and China, he spoke exclusively Swedish.

Only "Deutsche"

Duhomira Marasovic mysteriously emerged from a 24-hour coma in her native Croatia. When she woke up from this coma, she spoke fluent German, that is, a language that this 13-year-old girl had just begun to learn at school. How's her Croatian? Not very good. She needs a translator to talk to her parents via...

Speak Chinese

Australian Ben McMahon studied Chinese in high school but was still at beginner level when he was involved in a serious car accident. When he emerged from a week-long coma, he began to chirp in Chinese like a nightingale. In fact, he was so fluent that he later landed jobs as a tour guide for Chinese tours of Melbourne and a Chinese TV show. True, he had to restore English within a few days. But at least he got a job as a result of this incident - the best consequence of an accident and coma imaginable.

Became a Hollywood star

Rory Curtis woke up from a coma speaking fluent French, a language he had limited experience with, and yet he still thought he was actor Matthew McConaughey. The good news is that he is lucky to be alive at all.

He suffered pelvic injuries, injuries and brain damage after his minibus overturned and five (yes, five!) cars crashed into it. He was in a coma for six days and came out of it thinking he was a Hollywood star. He eventually realized he was wrong, but his French-speaking abilities remain even now, two years later.

What is this, Welsh?

An 81-year-old man named Alan Morgan was evacuated to Wales during the Second World War. Despite living there as a 10-year-old, he never studied Welsh. He returned to England after the war, and lived there for 71 years before suffering a stroke that left him in a coma. Three weeks later he came out of this state and spoke Welsh and stopped speaking English completely.

Perfect English? Even the English can't talk like that!

Matej Kus was an 18-year-old speedway racer from the Czech Republic when he was involved in an accident. After a brief coma, he woke up speaking perfect English with a British accent, no less. Unfortunately for him, it didn't last long. Soon after the accident he returned to speaking broken English.

The human brain is not so simple at all, and here is another confirmation of this. If you have been interested in medical news in recent days, you have noticed the case of a Croatian girl who suddenly spoke German after a coma, but forgot her native language.

The entire Croatian press widely discussed this phenomenon. As the web resource “20 Minuten” reports in the article “Kroatin spricht nach Koma fliessend Deutsch”, a 13-year-old girl fell into a coma after a severe traumatic brain injury. Croatian Sandra Rapik was in serious condition for about a day, balancing between life and death.

When she was able to open her eyes and say the first words, the medical workers could not understand her, as she spoke in German. She started learning this language at school quite recently and knew it with a solid C grade. She suddenly forgot her native Croatian. In this regard, the girl’s parents had to resort to the services of translators.

When asked how this became possible, the doctors, led by the hospital’s chief physician, shrug their hands in bewilderment. Psychiatrist Milhaud Milas noted that “previously this would have been considered a miracle, but we are inclined to believe that there is a logical explanation that simply has not yet been found.”

This case is not isolated, and there are many similar to it. In fact, such phenomena occur periodically and are even well documented.

Xenoglossy

Yes, this phenomenon is called xenoglossy. The term comes from the Greek “xenos” - alien, “gloss” - language, and means that a person suddenly begins to speak an unfamiliar language, sometimes modern, sometimes an ancient dialect of an extinct language, and sometimes completely “unknown to anyone”.

One of the most famous cases that occurred in 1931 involved a girl under the pseudonym Rosemary. This girl was able to speak an ancient language, and considered herself Teleka Ventui, living in Ancient Egypt during the reign of the 18th dynasty, that is, approximately 1400 BC.

When analyzing Rosemary’s speech, which was sent to the famous Egyptologist Howard Hulme, it turned out that the child was not talking nonsense at all, but spoke competently in an ancient dialect. When Hulme was told where this text came from, he came to see for himself. The scientist asked her several questions and made sure that the girl was well aware of the customs, language and writing of the Egyptians of the time of Amenhotep III. In the end, Hulme had all his doubts dispelled, and he truly felt that he was communicating with an ancient Egyptian woman.

Eternal mystery

Learning a foreign language is far from easy. Syntactic, grammatical rules, and methods of constructing sentences differ significantly in different languages. In order to learn to speak a foreign language well, you need to learn to think like a foreigner. How can a person learn to speak a foreign language in just 24 hours? The human body has remained a mystery to us for thousands of years, despite the development of modern science.

The incident that happened with a Croatian girl knocks down the modern ideas of neurophysiologists and psychiatrists. Such phenomena are very difficult to explain based on materialistic concepts. However, these are quite ordinary phenomena, if we take into account the supernatural capabilities of our consciousness. Perhaps we have believed for too long that “life is only a way of existence of protein bodies.”

Incredibly, there are people in the world who can speak different languages ​​without specifically studying them. This ability appears to them suddenly and for absolutely no reason. The most amazing thing is that many of them speak “extinct” languages ​​that disappeared from the face of the Earth many centuries, or even millennia ago.

This phenomenon is called xenoglossy, which means the ability to speak a “foreign language.”

The phenomenon of xenoglossy can no longer be called a particular rarity in our time. Now there is no need to hide your abilities, worrying about the safety of your family. People can openly declare and demonstrate their phenomenal knowledge. Most often, such cases look strange and frightening, but sometimes they are even funny.

A German couple once had a dispute; the husband, a plumber from the city of Bottrop, did not want to go to visit his mother-in-law. The man decided not to pay attention to his wife’s cries and, sticking cotton wool in his ears, went to sleep peacefully in his room.

It would seem that this is where it all ended, an offended wife, a sleeping husband. But the next day, when the husband woke up and spoke to his wife, she could not understand a word. He spoke a completely unfamiliar language to her and refused to speak German. Moreover, it was known that he never studied foreign languages, he did not even finish high school and never left his hometown.

Extremely upset, the wife called an ambulance, and the doctors stated that her husband spoke pure Russian. The surprising thing is that he understood his wife perfectly and could not figure out why she did not understand him. He didn't even realize that he was speaking a different language. I had to re-teach the newly minted “Russian” to speak German.

The most famous case of xenoglossy occurred in 1931 in England. Unexpectedly for everyone, thirteen-year-old Rosemary began to demonstrate to those around her her knowledge of an unknown language, while demanding that she be called Teleka Ventui. She herself reported that she spoke ancient Egyptian, and also claimed that she was a dancer in one of the temples of Egypt.

Dr. F. Wood, a professor at the British Society for Psychical Research, recorded some of Rosemary's phrases and gave them to Egyptologists for study. The result was stunning: the girl really spoke the ancient Egyptian language, and had an excellent command of grammar and used archaisms that were in use during the reign of Amenhotep III.

Egyptology professors decided to conduct an exam for the girl in order to catch her in deception: it was initially assumed that she had secretly studied the dictionary of the ancient Egyptian language, which was published in the 19th century.

Preparing complex questions for the exam took a whole day, and the girl, without effort and extra time, quickly gave the correct answers, using the same ancient Egyptian. The researchers concluded that such knowledge of a language cannot be obtained simply from a textbook.

Quite often, the phenomenon of xenoglossy occurs in young children, but adults, unexpectedly for everyone, can amaze everyone with their ability to speak ancient languages.

There is still no exact explanation for xenoglossy, although this phenomenon has been known for at least two thousand years. It is usually attributed to the well-known biblical story, when the disciples of Jesus on the fiftieth day after his resurrection began to speak many languages, after which they carried their knowledge to different peoples of the world .

Scientists are of the opinion that xenoglossy is one of the manifestations of schizophrenia, a split personality. A person supposedly once unconsciously learned a language or dialect, but then forgot about it, and at a certain point in time the brain produces this information.

But, as you know, most cases of xenoglossia are attributed to children. Is it possible to attribute a split personality problem to children? When could children learn several ancient languages ​​and forget about it, and all this happened without the participation of adults?

American professor Ian Stevenson studied this phenomenon in detail. He attributed this phenomenon to the nature of reincarnation and conducted a number of studies where he carefully selected all known cases and studied each of them in detail.

Religious societies look at xenoglossy differently. In Christianity, for example, this is called demonic possession, and in this case exorcism sessions are performed. But in the Middle Ages, such people were declared accomplices of the devil and burned at the stake.

Not every person brought up on certain religious rules and dogmas can calmly perceive information about the ability to speak and write in the language of the Atlanteans, ancient Egyptians or even Martians. Such cases have also happened!

It turns out that the ability to speak different languages, including ancient and already extinct ones, can be acquired by entering a trance state.

According to eyewitnesses, shamans of many tribes can speak different languages ​​when there is a special need for this. This ability comes to them during a trance. They acquire temporary knowledge and abilities for a specific task. Then all this is forgotten.

There have also been cases where mediums enter a trance state and begin to speak in unknown languages ​​or in other voices. Let's try not to resort to explaining spiritualists and remember other unexplained similar cases.

For example, Edgar Cayce, an American clairvoyant, demonstrated the ability to gain temporary knowledge of a language through a trance state. One day he received a letter in Italian: Casey did not understand this language and had never studied it.
Plunging into a trance, he spoke easily in Italian. He read the letter and successfully dictated the answer in the same Italian. He performed the same trick with the German correspondent: having entered a trance, he spoke fluently in German.

If we recall the cases of xenoglossia in adults, we can trace one pattern. Xenoglossia occurs after active spiritual practices, breathing exercises, and also after sessions of spiritualism. Perhaps these people, in their exercises, reached a certain level of consciousness and received all their knowledge and skills from past incarnations. .

But what about those people who have never engaged in such practices at all, or with young children who have just begun to explore the world? There are many explanations for this phenomenon, but none of them gives a clear definition and reasons for its occurrence.

Xenoglossy is a well-known phenomenon, like telepathy; everyone knows that it exists, but no one can explain it. Religion, science and skeptics around the world have tried various ways to explain this phenomenon, giving explanations such as genetic memory, telepathy or cryptomnesia (the retrieval of a foreign language learned unconsciously or in childhood).

However, there have been many cases of xenoglossy throughout history, and none of these theories can fully explain every case.

According to some historians, the first documented case of xenoglossy is mentioned in connection with the twelve apostles on the day of the Holy Trinity. For those who do not consider the Bible as a reliable historical source, there are many examples from the ancient and medieval world, as well as in our modern era.

After hypnosis, a woman from Pennsylvania began to communicate in Swedish. However, her sudden skills were not acquired through training. In a state of deep trance, she spoke using a deeper voice and claimed to be Jensen Jacobi, a Swedish resident born in the 17th century.

This case has been studied extensively by Dr. Ian Stevenson, former director of psychiatry at the University of Virginia and author of The Language Untaught: New Research in Xenoglossy. According to Dr. Stevenson, this woman, having no previous contact with the language and without studying it before, could only know Swedish if she remembered it from a previous incarnation.

This is far from the only case of xenoglossy that has been attributed to previous incarnations. In 1953, Professor P. Pal of Itachuna University in East Bengal discovered Swarnlata Mishra, a four-year-old Hindu girl who knew Bengali songs and dances without having any contact with that culture. The girl claimed that she was once a Bengali woman who was taught to dance by a close friend.

While some explain xenoglossy as cryptomnesia, as in the case of the Hindu girl who may have had some forgotten contacts with the neighboring Bengali culture, in many incidents this theory does not fit.

One of the most surprising cases occurred in 1977. Convicted criminal Billy Mulligan from Ohio discovered two additional identities: one called himself Abdul and spoke pure Arabic, the other, named Rugen, spoke perfect Serbo-Croatian. According to prison doctors, Mulligan never left the United States, where he was born and raised.

Biologist Layal Watson describes a similar case with a ten-year-old Filipino boy, Indio Igaro, who, in a state of trance, spoke Zulu, a language he had never heard.

Another case was caused by a car accident. Until 2007, Czech racer Matej Kus could barely speak broken English. But after he was struck during the accident, medics and others at the scene were amazed that Kus suddenly began speaking clear English with a British accent. However, this ability did not last long. Kus has lost his fluency in English and is learning it using the usual method.

Some scientists believe that such cases may be caused by genetic memory, while others believe that these people may be telepathically connected to the language through its speakers. However, careful research and evidence does not add to the arguments for these theories, but favors Dr. Stevenson's idea.

This idea is supported by the experience of Australian psychologist Peter Ramster, author of The Search for Past Lives, who discovered that he could communicate in fluent Old French with his student Cynthia Henderson, but only when she was under hypnosis. When she came out of her trance, she had only a rudimentary knowledge of the language.

In search of a comprehensive explanation for xenoglossy, some scientists have agreed with Dr. Stevenson's theories about past lives. According to his theory, after trauma or in a hypnotic state, the personality from a past incarnation comes out and the person demonstrates knowledge that he or she may not have had in this life.

At first, Dr. Stevenson was also extremely skeptical about cases involving regressive hypnosis, but over time he became one of the most famous authors on the subject. Later, as his work progressed, Dr. Stevenson shifted his attention to young children as research subjects.

He found that they recalled information from previous incarnations much more easily and did not require hypnosis or a traumatic event in order to talk about their distant past.

Dr. Stevenson recorded descriptions of the children's past lives and compared them with the data of the deceased people whom they themselves claimed to be. He even compared details of the physical features of the deceased, such as the location of scars and... birthmarks, with stories from children. This information, along with cases of xenoglossy, provided Dr. Stevenson with what he believed to be evidence of past lives.

However, past lives cannot explain all cases of xenoglossy. In several cases, the individual could speak a language that was attributed to some beings from other planets. This has to do with what some call possession or, in the case of a benevolent being, contact with a higher form of life.

The results become even more interesting when people gain the ability to speak and write incredible things - for example, in the language of the inhabitants of Atlantis or even in the Martian language. This was recorded by researcher T. Flournoy in 1899, when a woman named Helen believed that, in addition to Hindi and French, she spoke the language of the inhabitants of the red planet.

Apart from cases involving the languages ​​of lost continents or neighboring planets, where the truth is difficult to establish, xenoglossy can also appear in the form of lost languages, dead languages ​​or rare dialects.

While the phenomenon of xenoglossy is intriguing, what is perhaps even more fascinating is thinking about where this ability comes from. If the theories proposed by Dr. Stevenson and other researchers who have found the courage to study the mystery are correct, then this gives rise to ideas even more mysterious than the phenomenon itself.