Comments on: Croatian teenager wakes from coma speaking fluent German

By: damian

damian — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 19:45:39 +0000

This reminds me of a story written by Dave Elman in his book “Hypnotherapy”, a classic in which he recounts the tale of an Italian grandfather who suddenly afflicted by a horrible stiff neck goes to Dave seeking help in relieving this disability which was troubling his life and family. After spontaneous regression to an earlier life, finding that he was a young irish man previously who stayed back while older men went off to war in his previous irish life, he made his way through all of the lonely wives of the town and acquired a bit of guilt that wasn’t cured by the hanging he bought for himself when the husbands returned.

After counseling he was cured of his neck problem. He only spoke italian, except during the regression. His family was curiously relieved.

By: santa

santa — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 16:57:46 +0000

I say bullshit. A knock on the head does not translate to language proficiency if the person never learned it. It cannot change ANYONE from a first year language student to a fluent speaker. It can’t magically increase your vocabulary. Perhaps if she had studied and not remembered words and/or forgotten phrases the knowledge may be there and able to be used after a knock in the head but this makes it sound like it gave her knowledge she had never been exposed to. It cannot move you from “just having started studying” to fluent. Period. There is no magic here and that’s what it would take for new words, new pronunciations to “appear” in her brain.

By: Helen C

Helen C — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 13:35:16 +0000

If only House was real… he’d know.

By: spiderabc1

spiderabc1 — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 18:33:36 +0000

German books and tv? Information stored and wires crossed

By: Maja

Maja — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 14:31:24 +0000

The images you guys choose to add to news posts are usually brilliant. For example: see above.

By: Scott

Scott — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 10:54:34 +0000

Very interesting, it reminds me of a girl in the UK who hit her head and then couldn’t write “forward” any more. Everything she wrote came out backwards, but another bump on the head and it corrected itself.

Now, learning languages is difficult for most of us. After 5 years in Thailand, my Thai is not that great.

I still think it would be good if Derren read a few different books on foreign languages and using his skills, know how to pronounce and speak another fluent language.

By: Berber Anna

Berber Anna — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 09:55:10 +0000

It’s really not that rare — it’s called bilingual aphasia and is hypothezised to be caused by the fact that secondary languages reside in another part of the brain than primary ones. So if you damage the area holding your primary language, secondary languages may survive.

I’ve even read of a case involving a guy retaining only Klingon. That must be fun…

By: Ethan Caine

Ethan Caine — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 08:52:02 +0000

That is so cool…as long as she makes a full recovery of course.

By: Andy Grigg

Andy Grigg — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 08:46:46 +0000

Like the foreign accent syndrome, but so much more extreme!

By: Sharron Levy

Sharron Levy — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 08:17:28 +0000

I’m learning German at the moment and very often traumatised on the stinky London tube but still…….can’t speak the language.

as long as she is healthy and awake, it’s all good