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HELP! I’VE NEVER BEEN SUCCESSFUL LEARNING A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

It’s a fact: it is easier to learn a second language when one is little. Learning is done in a natural way, and your ear is still open to all sounds. But what if you are already an adult? Don’t panic: there are solutions!

DIFFERENT SOUNDS

When an infant acquires a second language at the same time as his or her mother language, he or she is going to obtain an unmatched level of fluidity and ease.

At birth, the human hearing range spans from 20 Hertz (the eardrum and ear bones vibrate 20 times per second) to 20,000 Hz. Different languages stimulate frequencies in your ear. For example, a francophone mostly uses sounds situated between 1,000 to 2,000 Hz. Therefore, as an adult, the ear no longer perceives any other sounds. Similarly, all latins have the same problem with germanic sounds: they don’t hear them well, hence their difficulty to learn these languages quickly and well.

NOT ON THE SAME WAVELENGTH

The opening of the ear to foreign sounds is the foundation of learning languages. If I do not recognize a heard word, how can I understand it? If I mishear it, I memorize it incorrectly and when I reproduce this word, I use the sounds of my mother language, therefore I have an accent. How can my listener then understand what I say? It’s impossible to communicate!

It may seem obvious, but learning a language starts with your ear. The main problem is therefore to open the ear to foreign sounds. It is indispensible that the teacher speaks to you in his or her own mother language, to pronounce the sounds perfectly.

WHAT IF I MISSED THE BOAT?

What do we do when we, as adults, have never had the chance to learn a language as a child? There now exists a linguistic program that completely changes the principles of learning languages. The conception, however, has been the fruit of a long, complex development. This program is going to allow the ear to properly discriminate foreign sounds. Here’s how.

THE ELASTICITY OF THE BRAIN

Simplified explanation: the voice of a British speaker says “Hello” to me through the headphones at 6,000 Hertz. The sound is filtered by my ear at 2,000 Hertz because I am francophone, and I repeat the word “Hello” through the headphones at ... 2,000 Hertz (because that’s what I heard!) The computer program is going to modify my voice to match the English model and resend it modified through the headphones. This return only takes 20 milliseconds, which for the brain equals a return in real time: it accepts the change (it is tricked: it is indeed my voice but at a different frequency). The brain is going to ask my auditory system to adapt itself (to what it believes it has heard), and this is going to influence pronunciation (I repeat what I hear). In practicing this exercise, the ear is going to properly discern foreign sounds and my mouth is going to reproduce the sounds correctly.

It’s the elasticity of the brain (adaptation of connections in the brain) that allows such a feat. When the ear opens itself to the sounds of the target language, learning accelerates. The face-to-face or distance coaching by computer that accompanies this work is going to develop missing linguistic reflexes in order to improve oral expression.

This unique program is called SPEECH POWER.

The adage that says the key to languages is the ear is totally appropriate here. The main problem is therefore to open the ear to foreign sounds. So, would you like to know the key to languages?