Learn New Languages While Sleeping: Study

People can learn new languages even while sleeping, according to a study.

Students who snooze in the classroom miss out important lectures and lessons. But recent research by the University of Zurich and Fribourg found people are able to grasp new languages and vocabulary better when they fall asleep. Their study involved 60 German speaking participants who were made to learn Dutch. The researchers instructed the subjects to learn new words at night around 10: 00 p.m.  Then half of the students slept as recorded voices reciting Dutch words were played in the background in low-volumes and the rest remained awake as they listened to the words, reports the Science Alert.

The sleeping volunteers woke up at two in the morning and all participants underwent memory tests to measure their language learning skills. It was observed that students who slept performed better in the tests than those who were awake during the audio lessons. These individuals could recollect the German translation better than those that didn't get a shut eye. Listening to recorded words all night affected the control group volunteers.

The study authors Thomas Schreiner and Björn Rasch from the Swiss National Science Foundation explained sleeping refreshes the memory of words, phrases and sentences learnt by use and therefore, forming a strong association between the two. Their findings were backed by the ECG recordings that evaluated electrical signals in the brain areas as the volunteers dozed off while hearing Dutch words.

"There was a pronounced frontal negativity in event-related potentials, a higher frequency of frontal slow waves as well as a cueing-related increase in right frontal and left parietal oscillatory theta power," write the authors in the study, reports the Wired.Co.UK.

The results can be easily employed to enable learning but, it does not mean students can skip studying and sleep more. The authors believe further investigation is needed.

"You can only successfully activate words that you have learned before you go to sleep. Playing back words you don't know while you're asleep has no effect," said Schreiner, reports the New York Daily News.

More information is available online in the journal Cerebral Cortex.