Learning and the Brain: download a foriegn language to your brain.

• All thoughts have a basis in the physical brain (althought I believe in a soul).
• To change the physical brain you have to stimulate it with the external senses.
• Stimulate the brain's via correct sensory input and you will learn.

So if the mind is governed by the physical brain and all other physical processes of the body, all we have to do is identify what is the most efficient way to stimulate the brain via the optimal sensory input to develop language skills, correct? Yes. It is that simple. There is always an optimal way in everything in life. What does language involve? It involves. Memory, memory recall, working memory, the ability to imagine and construct ideas, to create metaphors and think in abstractions. Numerous areas of the brain are used. Broca's area is the base but virtually every area of the higher cortical regions are used. Some languages use more than others depending on the construct of the language. For example, Chinese spoken by a native speaker uses a much broader area of the brain than English spoken by an English speaker. So how can you train your brain and all these areas of your brain to think in a new language? The good new is if you have learned to speak once you can do it again in another language, even fluently. If have never learned a language after the age of 8 you never will. Early on you did most of the work to learn a second language when you learned your first. The imaginative, abstract, metaphorical components of language are in place. You have to now learn the vocabulary and basic grammatical structures. For example, knowing only a few words in Polish, I was able to write a simple poem in Polish. Here is the English translation.

I am waiting
I am waiting
Every night I see you in my dreams
When I awake you are gone
I am waiting

My point is you already know 99% of what you need to know to learn a foreign language. I was able to think abstractly and imagine and to construct the poem with the thinking skills I learned as a child, just use using a new vocabulary. You also know how to think in abstractions, put ideas together. What is left?.  Really just the vocabulary and grammar. The grammar will come when you listen to the language, if you learn the words. You are 99.9% of the way there then right? Yes.
What physical part of the brain is the most important for learning a second language? I would nominate the sea horse shaped area called the hippocampus. This is a component of the limbic area or mid brain involved in memory formation and recall.
So again what is the best way to learn a language?
What is the best way to learn a language is to learn the words.
How? Memory. Memory and memory recall.What is the best way to memorizes? Exercises .You can use memory tricks such as association or visualization found in any memory book; these are great, but without testing and retesting you will not make great progress. Since the brain responds to sensory input. The only practical way to stimulate the brain is through sensory receptors such as eyes and ears. Its the way we are built. As much as science progresses our brain still receives information through our eyes and ears etc.,  life after all is a sensory experience.

When the top universities and hospital retrain areas of the brain after tragic stoke or damage, how do they do it? Not through tricks or gimmicks, but through exercise. With new confidence in neuro plasticity universities are using basic exercises, training and retraining and getting great results. Rehabilitation does not include repeating tapes or reading long dialogues or memory tricks. To build and rebuild ECPs and new neuro path ways, neuro science uses focus concentrated exercise. 

With no tricks at all, testing and retesting will build your natural memory and working memory which are critical components for IQ and higher cogitative function. With exercise your brain will respond faster than your body does to weigh lifting or aerobics. It will naturally secrete nerve growth factors or NGF. When your brain receives external stimulation from the sense, such as the ears, a neurons creates a electro-chemical connection or a pathway. This stimulation changes the physical brain. If you had an electron microscope that could some how observe this in the specific location, you would actually see your brain growth on a micro level, with each new byte of information it stores. However, your brain is not sure if it wants to keep this pathway in use. You brain tries to determine if it will ever use this byte of information again.

The neuro connections are like a small path though the woods that will be quicly overgrown. However, with repeated use it will become a well paved bike trail, then a road, the a super highway.

Can you blaime the brain for not storing everything the first time? After all would it really be useful to remember every TV commerical jingle you ever herd? So your brain waits to see if you are going to use this information. Therefore, the quicker you go through the testing and retesting process the quicker your brain will say,"'ok this is important, I will retain this information". This is how you learn.

In conclusion, the brain responds and learns though repeated mental challenges, if they are fun all the better, if you have a passion about it this is the best. "All great things in life are achieved with passion." -Hegel

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