Girl Wakes from Coma, Speaks German...

[Tyguy]

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.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...r-wakes-from-coma-speaking-fluent-German.html

There was a case of a guy who also woke up from a coma but his accent changed to that of a British person. Very funny but mildly unsettling.

 

[Emporius]

It's understandable. If sections of the brain regarding language memory are damaged it can fall back on another language.

 

[Barnz]

das ist schön

 

[Vegeta897]

I don't really see how this is possible. How can her brain know things she never learned? Surely she wasn't exposed to the entire German language in the brief period she spent learning. I can understand if her brain decided to drop Croatian and expertly utilize whatever amount of German she had learned so far, but all the knowledge couldn't have just magically appeared in her brain...

 

[Tyguy]

I don't really see how this is possible. How can her brain know things she never learned? Surely she wasn't exposed to the entire German language in the brief period she spent learning. I can understand if her brain decided to drop Croatian and expertly utilize whatever amount of German she had learned so far, but all the knowledge couldn't have just magically appeared in her brain...

That's what I'm thinking...it's possible that she has subconsciously learned a majority of the language and simply wasn't able to retrieve that data until now but the implications of this are very cool. This would mean it's theoretically possible to recall everything you have ever learned or experienced. I have no source but I remember seeing a lady on TV who was able to recall every moment of her life.

It almost makes you want to whack yourself in the head and hope for the best.

 

[StarBob]

That's what I'm thinking...it's possible that she has subconsciously learned a majority of the language and simply wasn't able to retrieve that data until now but the implications of this are very cool. This would mean it's theoretically possible to recall everything you have ever learned or experienced. I have no source but I remember seeing a lady on TV who was able to recall every moment of her life.

It almost makes you want to whack yourself in the head and hope for the best.

I think it has something to do with the brain's ability to recall information. It's sort of how savants can remember every single detail about something like baseball or do ridiculous math problems. I believe it's somewhat the same principle. The explanation for it is that the mind is capable of remembering virtually everything, but very few have the ability to recall it properly.

Usually this ability comes at the cost of other often simple brain functions like basic social skills or knowledge of daily tasks, but there's at least one case I can recall about a guy who could basically do any mathematics problem in his head (like reciting all of the powers of eight to 50 or something) and was perfectly normal in all other respects. He didn't hit his head or anything, it just happened one day when he was reading a book.

I don't think I'll be running my head into any walls or anythng to give it a shot.

 

[Warped]

I would love to be a in a coma and wake up in the future

as far as speaking German.....yuck!

no offense Germans but your language is semi scary

 

[Vegeta897]

I think it has something to do with the brain's ability to recall information.

Obviously, but you can't recall something you never learned in the first place.

 

[StarBob]

Obviously, but you can't recall something you never learned in the first place.

had been reading German books and watching German TV

I'm sure within German books and TV they cover a fair majority of the language. Easily enough to be considered fluent.

 

[Vegeta897]

Just because you listen or read a language doesn't mean you can understand it what is actually being said. No matter how powerful your brain is. At no point are the meanings of the words being said put into your brain, either subconsciously or non.

Perhaps she's actually just reciting fluent German, not actually communicating with it, or saying the things she wants to. That would be believable.

 

[StarBob]

Just because you listen or read a language doesn't mean you can understand it what is actually being said. No matter how powerful your brain is. At no point are the meanings of the words being said put into your brain, either subconsciously or non.

You'd be surprised what the human brain is capable of accomplishing... Like I said, savants accomplish things that even the most intelligent mathematicians can't pull off. There are people who can remember every single thing that's happened on every day of their life for decades. It's not like it's impossible... it's just improbable.

 

[Vegeta897]

You're still not getting what I'm saying. I know that remembering things is possible. And that calculating complex math things are possible too. But you can't remember something that you were never taught. Learning a language is not just a matter of listening to a language or reading it. You can't figure out what's actually being said unless that connection is made in your brain, learning what a word means. You can't learn all these things, let alone fluently, just from watching TV or reading or doing a few weeks of education.

I strongly believe that either this is a hoax, or the article fails to specify that she's actually just reciting fluent German, and not actually making any sense.

 

[StarBob]

How do you know what she did and didn't learn? How do you think people learn languages to begin with? You're a baby, you listen to people talking and you figure out how to do it yourself. That's a BABY'S brain making the connection. A tiny little mass of "wtf is going on" can learn a language without any prior knowledge of what a language even is. I figure I probably could be fluent in Spanish if I could unlock enough of it from my memory, but I know I sure as hell can't...

But yeah the article could be misleading on the level of education she had actually received or what "fluent" actually means. It's not uncommon to get hit on the head and lose large chunks of knowledge.

 

[Vegeta897]

How do you think people learn languages to begin with? You're a baby, you listen to people talking and you figure out how to do it yourself.

That takes several years. And don't tell me a 4 year old is fluent in english.

 

[staticprimer]

Listen to Vegeta, he's a neuroscientist.

 

[Vegeta897]

If the logic of what I'm saying doesn't make sense, please point out where it doesn't. You don't need to be a neuroscientist to know that your brain can't magically understand the definition of a word just from hearing it.

 

[Sheepo]

But Vegeta, did you ever consider that babies learn languages? I mean, come on man.

 

[staticprimer]

If the logic of what I'm saying doesn't make sense, please point out where it doesn't. You don't need to be a neuroscientist to know that your brain can't magically understand the definition of a word just from hearing it.

But that's the point. Not even the experts fully understand how the brain works, how can you say with such certainty that this is impossible and therefore a hoax?

 

[Vegeta897]

Experts may not know how the brain works, but they know what its limitations are. If I told you a word from another language, even if you had a million years and the most powerful brain ever, you wouldn't know what the word meant, unless I told you the meaning so that your brain can pair up that word with that meaning.

 

[Escaep]

I would love to be a in a coma and wake up in the future

Apart from being older, having aged, missing out on your life, maybe having to learn everything again, catch up on new stuff, say goodbye to friends/family that might have died during this time....

Yeah, it does sound pretty cool.

 

[Kaptain H]

I heard about a mermaid who learned English by watching soap operas, so this isn't too surprising. Still very interesting.

 

[Warped]

Apart from being older, having aged, missing out on your life, maybe having to learn everything again, catch up on new stuff, say goodbye to friends/family that might have died during this time....

Yeah, it does sound pretty cool.

you obviously never saw Encino Man. he fit in pretty damn good

 

[swan_song1973]

sounds fishy to me.

 

[15357]

I heard about a mermaid who learned English by watching soap operas, so this isn't too surprising. Still very interesting.

sounds fishy to me.

I made it better, see?

 

[Escaep]

you obviously never saw Encino Man. he fit in pretty damn good

Encino Man is a comedy film. Whilst it might be funny, I doubt its highly accurate of how someone would fit in.

 

[CyberPitz]

Encino Man is a comedy film. Whilst it might be funny, I doubt its highly accurate of how someone would fit in.

It was a documentary, you twit.

 

[VirusType2]

When I wake up in the morning, I speak O.G., mother****ers.

 

[Escaep]

It was a documentary, you twit.

Wikipedia:

Encino Man, released in Europe as California Man, is a 1992 American comedy film directed by Les Mayfield and starring Brendan Fraser, Sean Astin and Pauly Shore.

imdb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104187/
Genre: Comedy, Fantasy

Rotten Tomatoes: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/encino_man/
Genre: Comedies

Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Encino-Man-Sean-Astin/dp/6305433925

Brendan Fraser made his film debut in this 1992 comedy that never quite discovers its audience constituency.

NyTimes: http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/15788/Encino-Man/overview
Genre: Comedy

So unless there's another Encino Man out there, I don't really see how a movie about a caveman being brought back to life can be a documentary.

 

[Bob_Marley]

Experts may not know how the brain works, but they know what its limitations are. If I told you a word from another language, even if you had a million years and the most powerful brain ever, you wouldn't know what the word meant, unless I told you the meaning so that your brain can pair up that word with that meaning.

Its possible that sort of connection could be made from watching television, I guess.

Broadly speaking I'm in agreement with you, however. This does seem somewhat implausable.

However, who knows what might have been going on in that head?

 

[dfc05]

Its possible that sort of connection could be made from watching television, I guess.

Broadly speaking I'm in agreement with you, however. This does seem somewhat implausable.

However, who knows what might have been going on in that head?

I agree with this nice middle-of-the-road standpoint. I've heard that immigrants tend to learn really well from watching tv, especially when it comes to colloquialisms that you might not be taught in a class (and also because watching tv is more interesting than sitting in class). I think it's possible to pick up a lot of stuff contextually without necessarily having a dictionary of words and exact definitions in front of you.

 

[63]

sounds fishy to me.

This.

This "coma then AWESOME!" stuff happens all the time, then a few months later we find out that it was all extremely exaggerated.

Spoiler

I have no proof that it "happens all the time".

 

[ktimekiller]

I don't know if you have ever learned another language vegeta, but you do not necessarily have to understand the meaning behind words to understand a language.

The various subtle factors that we are not conscious of, such as tone, body language, sentence structure, and probably most obvious, situation, can greatly have an impact to inferring what something could potentially mean without knowledge of the words themselves.

Let us suppose through her study that she encountered most common words, and a great variety of common word structures and such. Taken to all the above factors, it seems somewhat plausible that she could speak the language to a degree. Perhaps her use of the language is bad, but nonetheless, as HER mind believes, it is a language.

It is not so outlandish that it could happen, though I am not exactly saying that it is the case here.