

Croatian teenager wakes from coma speaking fluent German - mnemonik
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/croatia/7583971/Croatian-teenager-wakes-from-coma-speaking-fluent-German.html

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westbywest
I'm a bit wary about the claim "able to communicate perfectly in German."

The brain can indeed abstract speech patterns away from the actual language
spoken, and multi-linguists do this routinely (being one myself). However, I
don't see how the girl could have been exposed to enough vocabulary before (or
even during) the coma sufficient to speak "fluently."

Nevertheless, the article does suggest the girl was quite avid about the new
language (absorbing TV and books outside of class), so perhaps the coma served
as something of an incubation period for word retention and language skills
that weren't quite together when the coma set in.

Recht merkwuerdig.

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aphyr
We know that sleep plays an important role in memory and skill acquisition,
although exactly how is still unknown. I wonder if a coma like this works in a
similar way; taking the experiences she had with German TV shows and building
the pathways needed for speech and recognition.

I wish we could induce skill-building comas safely! I would love to absorb a
language or formalism in days instead of years.

