Conquering the Three Enemies
Children have the natural ability to pick up a foreign language very quickly when exposed to the culture. There seems to be a 'Language Learning Machine' inherent to the human brain that they utilise. Later in life, accessing this natural ability - which still lies dormant within us - usually becomes more difficult, as we fall under the spell of the three great enemies of language acquisition, from whose grip we must free ourselves:
Enemy Nr 1: Stress
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As adults, we not only get less exposure to the target language than children do, we are also more attached to the outcome. We mimic less because we don't want to sound silly, and we tense up when we leave pre-established structures of thinking or fail to meet our own expectations. However, we know from modern hypnotherapy that the mind works best when relaxed: it becomes more creative, learns better and remembers more.
In HypnoGerman, we use exercises that cultivate a relaxed yet focused state of mind - the Alpha state - in which brain waves slow down, much like in half-sleep or daydream. This is the state in which learning flows naturally. |
The brain is most effective when the Alpha-brain wave state: a relaxed, focused, slightly hypnotic state of mind.
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Enemy Nr 2: Forgetting
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Research has shown that any new piece of vocabulary needs to be repeated a 100 times, before it reaches long-term linguistic memory. In old fashioned language class, words were memorised, then a vocabulary test was taken, and the word, in a few weeks, forgotten. It is not enough to simply remember a word, it has to come automatically: without thinking, without effort. (Like in sports, when a movement is stored in muscle memory.) In a natural environment, 100 repetitions of any given word occur rather quickly: if we learn a word at any given time, we are likely to hear it on television, in personal conversation or read it somewhere shortly again. And again. And again. But if we don’t live in the country where the language is spoken, our words are more vulnerable to forgetting. HynoGerman uses a spaced repetition system, which is designed to feed us back the learned information at optimised intervals, before it would be forgotten.
Contrary to the commonly held myth, children do not actually learn a language faster than adults. They are only exposed to many more hours of meaningful input than the normal adult learner. A child is exposed to the target language 10-12 hours a day, thanks to the collective effort of parents, relatives and friends, television, games and kindergarten. The average adult learner only spends a few hours per week with the target language. |
Spaced Repetition Systems counteract the notorious "forgetting curve."
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Enemy Nr 3: Translating
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During many years, I have observed the difference between naturally bi- or multilingual people (who speak foreign languages as their own) and students in ld-school language classes (who might study a lot, but still struggle to use the foreign language). I understood that those people who struggle, translate in their heads: they think in their mother tongue all the time. Linguistically effective people don’t do that: they don’t translate – not even while they are learning the language! The brain can hardly cope with two languages running simultaneously (even professional translators can’t keep up doing that for more than 20 minutes).
Since HypnoGerman is based on visualisation, you learn by creating associations to images (rather than linking back to your mother tongue). That way you will get used to using a new language without translating, very much like bilingual children do it naturally. |
Visualisation is using the brain's natural way of processing information.
Using it helps to bypass the bad habit of translating everything inside our own head.
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Based on relaxation, visualisation & Mnemonics
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HypnoGerman is not some miraculous method, which enables you to learn a new language while in trance or asleep. That experiment has been tried and failed. It is, however, an indeed miraculous journey into the depth of your own mind, a step-by-step exploration into the workings of your own language machine. It is utilising leading-edge and so far almost hidden techniques which will enable you to understand, speak and read a foreign language, while giving you tools of visualisation, memory and positive manifestation you can use in other areas of life, as well.
When you speak a foreign language, it is like you are becoming a new person. It enables you to discover parts of your personality, which hitherto remained hidden. You take on the soul of a different culture, thereby you free yourself from limitation you previously might have imposed on yourself. |
HypnoGerman is:
☼ multimedia ☼ internet based ☼ individual ☼ and friendly. |
