Thread: Learning A Second Language

Here's the official linguistic applications thread, continued from Here

wow , that would be incredible if it could be done. I have had a few dreams in spanish (modest spanish, nothing fancy) im learning it in school, but perhaps you could review some of the linguistic concepts in your sleep if you are aware enough. Good idea. Next time i LD i will try to think in spanish to see if my facultes are all there .

I'd really like to learn more spanish and japanese...
if it's possible in dreams I'll give it a go ^_^

Originally Posted by Lucid

I'd really like to learn more spanish and japanese...
if it's possible in dreams I'll give it a go ^_^[/b]

I'm starting to believe that the only way to master an accent is through dreams... be they lucid or not.

The Purple Knight

this concept is cool, it would definately work for something that you already know, you can just practice it but when it comes to trying to learn something you haven't researched or have no knowledg of, its impossible to be honest, but practicing something you already know is most likely possible, this would be useful for my french speaking exam coming up in a couple of weeks

Originally Posted by lucid_seeker

this concept is cool, it would definately work for something that you already know, you can just practice it but when it comes to trying to learn something you haven't researched or have no knowledg of, its impossible to be honest, but practicing something you already know is most likely possible, this would be useful for my french speaking exam coming up in a couple of weeks[/b]

I used to think that way. I've had some experiences that make me begin another way. Now, just a reminder to positivistic ignoramuses, I'm not saying the experiences I'm about to tell you "prove" anything. A fertile mind can always think of plausible explanations to keep whatever worldview intact. They are just experiences I choose to see a certain way.

One time, as I was going to bed, I had the most amazing vision. I saw two guys conversing in arabic, and I was one of the guys. I was amazed that for some reason, I could speak arabic. It's not really that I understood at a word-to-word level what I was saying, but on a global scale, I knew what was going on. We were in a marketplace, discussing goods, and women.

This experience amazed me because I took arabic for a while... long enough to recognize the language and a few words, but definitely not long enough to actually construct sentences.

So obviously, there was no arabic-speaking person there to say, "wow what impeccable grammar." Perhaps it was all jibberish. In which case, you would be right that the dream didn't represent "anything I didn't already know."

Maybe we have capacities we don't know about.

But whatever the case may be, there's no doubt that having dreams like that (even if they're completely jibberish) could be extremely useful for mastering a language.

Extremely, extremely useful. Because even if it was jibberish, I definitely have a "feel" for the language, its pace, rhythm, structure, music, syllables. That's at a very minimum.

What a cool dream, now if only I could do that in Italian.

The Purple Knight

Originally Posted by chevalier_violet

I used to think that way. I've had some experiences that make me begin another way. Now, just a reminder to positivistic ignoramuses, I'm not saying the experiences I'm about to tell you "prove" anything. A fertile mind can always think of plausible explanations to keep whatever worldview intact. They are just experiences I choose to see a certain way.

One time, as I was going to bed, I had the most amazing vision. I saw two guys conversing in arabic, and I was one of the guys. I was amazed that for some reason, I could speak arabic. It's not really that I understood at a word-to-word level what I was saying, but on a global scale, I knew what was going on. We were in a marketplace, discussing goods, and women.

This experience amazed me because I took arabic for a while... long enough to recognize the language and a few words, but definitely not long enough to actually construct sentences.

So obviously, there was no arabic-speaking person there to say, "wow what impeccable grammar." Perhaps it was all jibberish. In which case, you would be right that the dream didn't represent "anything I didn't already know."

Maybe we have capacities we don't know about.

But whatever the case may be, there's no doubt that having dreams like that (even if they're completely jibberish) could be extremely useful for mastering a language.

Extremely, extremely useful. Because even if it was jibberish, I definitely have a "feel" for the language, its pace, rhythm, structure, music, syllables. That's at a very minimum.

What a cool dream, now if only I could do that in Italian.

The Purple Knight[/b]

You have a valid point actually, during our everyday life we could pick up things subconciously for example maybe we watched a TV show with some french in it, then a few weeks later we can speak french in our dreams, thinking about it this way certainly makes it possible, who knows what our subconcious picks up without us realising?

All kinds of shit I imagine. Thinking you can learn another language in you dream is dumb...

Originally Posted by MoD

All kinds of shit I imagine. Thinking you can learn another language in you dream is dumb...[/b]

i never claimed that you could learn another language in a dream, i'm merely saying that our subconcious could pick up phrases from another language in our everyday life and it is reflected in our dreams, i'm open to the idea until someone actually achieves it, your entitled to your opinion but don't be so rude about it please, thanks

Originally Posted by MoD

All kinds of shit I imagine. Thinking you can learn another language in you dream is dumb...[/b]

All kinds of shit you can't imagine is possible.

Thinking you cannot possibly learn another language in your dreams in dumb.

But yes, please be more polite in the future.

It is my interpretation of what happened that we were actually speaking Arabic. That is not dumb, that is a plausible interpretation. Moreover, it takes more open-mindedness and imagination to think this way, because most people in society think "that's dumb."

I'm not saying you're dumb either. When you believe that learning words you had never learned before in a dream is impossible, that is very plausible, indeed likely. Which is why I found this dream so interesting.

That said, I have had dreams in French where I remember a word I said, and I repeated it to my friend. He said, "that doesn't mean anything" and he's French. So I don't believe I can make any kind of case whatsoever that my original dream was in actual Arabic. You are more than reasonable to doubt that we can learn any words from a language that we have not heard before.

One more thought. The idea that we CAN learn words that we've never heard before is a cross-cultural mystical belief. Events like this are reported, at the very least, in the Bible, in Europe, in Africa, and in North America. Some people believe that cross-cultural reports of para-normal activity can be seen as a map, however imperfect, of human potential. I'm not sure what to believe about this personally, since I have never transformed into a crow for instance.

Again, you are reasonable to be skeptical. I also have some reasons to believe what I believe. I don't like the argument that nothing can be true if it isn't repeatedly demonstrated by ethnocentric, mechanical laboratory experiements, run by a cadre ethnocentric observers and incompetent testees.

In other words, all that is possible is not always "scientifically" demonstrable.

I'm not sure I can see how this is much of a basis to say that anything is impossible.

The Purple Knight

Ah, I really wish I could have that done in my dream, I have Spanish orals soon so it'd be great timing for such a thing to occur in my sleep. I do remember having dreams where I'm speaking Tagalog, Japanese, or Spanish, sometimes though with fake words... I do remember the words spoken but most of them I already know like bakla,naze, duele, etc.