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Foreign accent syndrome is a very rare neurological disease that is usually the result of a stroke or a serious head injury. Characteristic for him is that the patient begins to speak his native language, but with a foreign accent. For example, an American can speak English, but, say, with a Chinese accent.
An interesting incident occurred in 1941 in Norway, a young girl was injured during the bombing, and when she came to she spoke with a strong German accent, which, given the time and place of what happened, greatly surprised her countrymen and relatives.
Another case of such a neurological disease occurred in America, where a 40-year-old woman spoke with a Russian accent after she fell down the stairs. The accent is very strong, and according to the victim herself, it interferes with her full life. At the first meeting with her, everyone is sure that she is a foreigner.
It is also known that the cause can be not only damage to the brain. In several cases, the syndrome of foreign speech has arisen in psychiatric diseases. And in another case, a 13-year-old teenager came out of a coma and spoke not in her native language, but in German, which she had previously studied.
Sometimes the "victims" move much further: they begin to speak not only with a foreign accent or in a language that they previously studied, but even in a language that they have never encountered in their lives. When 16-year-old goalkeeper Ruben Nsemu from Georgia, USA, tried to cover the ball with his body, he did not see his leg, which eventually collided with his head. This stroke sent the high school student into a three-day coma. After Nsemu woke up in the hospital, he spoke fluent Spanish. However, before his head injury, the only language he could speak fluently was English, which he seems to have forgotten. As he began to remember how to speak English, his knowledge of Spanish began to fade.
This case is called foreign language syndrome and can occur when a person passes out due to a traumatic brain injury. The brain tries to reset itself, often acting on the damage. Sometimes it manifests itself physically and the person is temporarily unable to control the limbs, and sometimes they speak in a language that he or she could not speak before (at least fluently).
In cases of foreign language syndrome, after the brain is rewired, people usually forget how to use the foreign language and start speaking their original language again.
Four hundred years ago, if a person could survive a head injury, they might not have survived being burned as a witch or sorcerer when they suddenly started speaking Portuguese.
Science is trying to explain the foreign language syndrome. If a person has learned a second language, even if he has forgotten most of it, as the brain recovers, it switches its functions through the secondary language, according to neuroscientists at the Queensland Institute, USA.
Therefore, this is another good way to learn a foreign language for those who are already desperate. Of course, this is a joke. The existence of a foreign language syndrome only proves that it is possible to extract information from the brain about previously studied phenomena, they are not lost with your decision to stop studying. Therefore, do not stop, your subconscious mind takes its toll and will give out all your knowledge at the right time!
