New Delhi. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has reached New York on his first state visit to America. A large number of Indians are present outside the New York airport to welcome PM Modi. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will participate in a yoga program at the United Nations Headquarters tomorrow.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives in New York on first leg of his official State visit to the United States
During his visit to New York, PM will meet CEOs, Nobel laureates, economists, artists, scientists, scholars, entrepreneurs, academicians, health sector experts today.… pic.twitter.com/4oBgul8EPG
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives to address the joint session of the US Parliament on June 22, Indian American MP Thanedar will escort him to the dais. Thanedar, a leader of the Democratic Party, represents Michigan’s 13th Congressional District in Parliament. He has also been invited by US President Joe Biden for the state dinner organized in honor of Prime Minister Modi on June 22 at the White House (the official residence and office of the US President). This is the second time that Prime Minister Modi will address a joint session of the US Parliament. He is the first Indian Prime Minister to do so. Earlier he had addressed the US Parliament in 2016. Thanedar (68) said, “Me and (my wife) Shashi are looking forward to the Prime Minister’s visit to America. This is a historic program for the Prime Minister. I hope that the Prime Minister will emphasize on a stronger relationship between the US and India. He said the invitation of President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden to the state dinner is an honor and a testament to their commitment to public service and their dedication to advancing international cooperation. He has the distinct distinction of escorting Prime Minister Modi to the dais when he arrives to address a joint session of Parliament. Describing his personal journey in life, Thanedar said, “I grew up in poverty and came to America with a dream. I am fortunate to have lived my dream in America. America is a country of immigrants, it is a land of opportunity, and this diversity is what makes our country strong.” He reiterated his commitment to supporting strong ties between the US and India. On Tuesday, Modi will meet over two dozen thinkers and experts from various fields, including Nobel laureate economists, artists, scientists, scholars, entrepreneurs, educationists and health experts. Prime Minister Modi is likely to meet Tesla and Twitter owner Elon Musk, astronaut and author Neil deGrasse Tyson, Nobel laureate economist Paul Romer, author Nicolas Nassim Talib and investor Ray Dalio.
Rudraprayag (IANS) | After the continuous bad weather for the last few days, the weather has cleared in Kedarnath Dham today. After the continuous snowfall in Dham, the sun has blossomed today. After being closed for one day on Wednesday, the journey to Kedarnath Dham has resumed today. However, today the journey to Kedarnath Dham has opened late. Thousands of pilgrims waiting for the Yatra to open have been gradually sent to Kedarnath Dham from Sonprayag and Gaurikund after 10 am. Work is on to open the footpath damaged at Bhairav Gadere due to the breaking of the glacier on the Kedarnath Yatra route. On the other hand, the weather was clear in the lower areas including the Dham since morning, but due to the closure of the footpath, the passengers were sent to the Dham only after 10 o’clock. However, the line of passengers to go to Dham started at Sonprayag at 4 am itself. A limited number of pilgrims are being sent to Kedarnath, so that arrangements can be made on foot along with Dham.
Let us tell you that on May 3, a high alert was issued for snowfall in Kedarnath. There was a lot of snowfall in the Dham. Because of this, the Yatra to Kedarnath Dham had to be postponed on May 3. Due to excessive snowfall, the glacier broke about four km below the Dham on the Kedarnath walking route and the movement on the route was stopped. The work of opening the pedestrian route had started from 4 am itself. 50 to 60 laborers are engaged in the work of removing snow.
Actually, the road between Lincholi to Kedarnath was closed due to breaking of glacier at two places. At one place, the laborers have started the movement on foot. But due to heavy snowfall on Bhairon Gadere, the laborers have to work hard. The path is being made by the laborers by cutting the glacier. Now the pilgrims reaching Kedarnath Dham will have to pass through huge glaciers. They need to take special care while passing through here.
NEW DELHI: Air India will provide 26 weeks of maternity leave to women employees as well as daycare support under its revamped policies.
Besides, the airline will give women pilots the choice to opt for quicker turnaround flights till the child reaches the age of one year.
The option will be subject to request and availability, according to an internal communication.
The revised policies, to be effective from April 1, are part of the carrier’s ‘MOMS – Returning Mothers Programme’.
MOMS refers to ‘Making Our Mothers Soar’.
Women employees will get maternity leave for 26 weeks, including for commissioning and adopting mothers, as per the communication.
Currently, the maternity leave is for 12 weeks.
A commissioning mother refers to one who commissions a surrogate mother to bear a child on her behalf while adopting mother is one who legally adopts a child.
Under the programme, a woman employee can avail of nutrition guidance and day care facility on a co-pay model.
There will also be counselling sessions to “address mental well-being, preparation for childbirth and plans to return to work for expectant mothers”, the communication said.
Air India, which was taken over by Tata Group in January last year, has more than 5,000 women employees, including flying and non-flying staff.
This accounts for around 40 per cent of the total headcount of nearly 11,000 people.
If you are planning to travel outside India, then instead of going to UK, US and Australia, go to such a place where you can enjoy the beauty of the city and enjoy the lifestyle there. Belgrade, which is the capital of Serbia, is included in the list of such beautiful cities. Where you can fulfill all your wishes. So know what else is special in this city. Resembles Connaught Place in Belgrade Republic Square is the central point of Belgrade where the largest crowd of locals and tourists is seen. This place, which looks like another European town square, has the same charm as Connaught Place in Delhi, where there is no dearth of options from shopping to eating and drinking.
View of Republic Square In the center of Republic Square is the statue of Prince Michael sitting on a horse. Some of Belgrade’s most famous buildings such as the National Museum and the National Theater are in this area. The brightness of the evening is made here. People are seen sitting comfortably on the benches placed between the colorful and musical fountains, eating and drinking coffee. Be it alone, with partner or with family. Everyone can come here and spend quality time. Colorful flowers all around leave no stone unturned to make the city beautiful, while the magical view begins with the setting evening. Which you can feel from midnight till before the sun rises. Lifestyle of Belgrade The culture and lifestyle here also attracts people especially.
https://youtu.be/hlBP5b06_Ok
It is quite normal to have dinner in restaurants with beer or wine every night here as alcohol is very cheap and entry is free in most nightclubs. There is no other place like Republic Square to spend quality time with your partner. Where you can sit and enjoy light music with your partner for hours. People here can be seen dancing and singing outside the bar, whose purpose is to show their talent to more people than to earn money. People coming from India or any such place feel very relaxed coming here because there is no mall culture here.
Sitting comfortably in the open space, you can share all kinds of personal and professional things and relax more than that. By the way, tourists especially come here to enjoy the nightlife because there are a lot of cafes and night clubs here and the entry is absolutely free..free..free. Security promises to protect security Safe city for women Apart from this, Belgrade is on top of the list of the safest cities in Europe, so it is obvious that the number of tourists here is more than other places.
This confidence can be easily seen in the women dancing and singing outside the bars at Republic Square. In recent years, the craze of solo trip has increased very fast, in which women are also not far behind. And for them, along with adventure, safety also matters a lot. In such a situation, they are looking for such places where they can enjoy the trip completely.
What’s possible in a week? If you dedicated seven days to the achievement of one goal, how ambitious could you make this goal? These were the questions that the multilingual friends Katy and Sara posed themselves when they determined to learn English in one week, to prove that it can be done and anyone can do it with the right methods.
They would attempt to liberate themselves from the distractions and responsibilities of modern-day life in order to cram eight hours of study time and I was observing some of the world’s most capable language learners at work.
The language learning expert: Sara
The friends set themselves the challenge of learning a language in a week in order to stretch themselves, and then it was a question of choosing which language to learn. English presented itself as a natural option; there are nigh on 300,000 English speakers in Germany’s capital, and the areas are dotted with stores adorned with signs in English.
“Truly understanding one’s environment requires one to first understand English”
The first operational step in the friends learning process was to decorate the entire apartment with sticky notes. This had an almost ceremonial touch to it as the friends delved into dictionaries and proceeded to label everything with its corresponding English name.
Within the space of about an hour it was impossible to carry out any menial task, be it making a coffee or flicking off a light switch, without first being presented with at least three different words related to this action.
Sara learning in the park
The importance of the other twin’s presence became immediately apparent as Katy and Sara delegated responsibilities for rooms to decorate with sticky notes. This simple task was augmented by continuous little tests that they would spring on one another, and the fact that they split up their day slightly differently and studied different topics meant that each twin became a source of knowledge for the other.
The most extraordinary moment came towards the end of the week!
The friends simply switched their everyday conversations to English, asking one another if they wanted tea or coffee, were ready to cook dinner or when they were going to leave the house.
Katy and Sara had numerous micro-challenges throughout the week. On the first day they were visited by a English friend who greeted them in English and complimented them on how quickly they’d picked up their first words and phrases.
They then learned the names of fruits and the numbers from one to a billion so that they could visit the English market (although they refrained from purchasing nine hundred thousand kumquats). Displaying their haul after their first functional exchange in English, they beamed with pride and a palpable sense of accomplishment before marching back home to study further.
Katy playing audio lessons
On our second visit to the brother’s apartment 24 hours into the week, we found them sampling dozens of different kinds of English snacks.
Like kids staring at the backs of cereal packs before heading to school, the nutritional information and various special offers and competitions on the packaging were analysed during snack breaks.
There was no moment of complete removal from the language learning process during the eight hours that the friends had allotted to it.
They were constantly using their existing knowledge to support the ever-growing knowledge of English, this being the root of their success.
“you will likely come across words that share common origins with your native tongue”
The friends spent a lot of time engrossed in books or on their computers and apps, flicking and swiping their way through exercises eagerly, but at other times they were to be found searching busily for English radio stations and write-ups of English football games on the web.
There is no definitive method to learn a language fluently
All too often, people enter their weekly language class to converse with their teacher, but then barely have any contact with other speakers and that’s not enough.
The old saying that we can solve problems more effectively when we sleep on it may be especially true if the problem we’re trying to solve is learning a new language.
Motivated Katy out to the library
Researchers from two Swiss universities wanted to know if they could enhance the learning of words from a foreign language by exposing people to the words during non-rapid eye movement sleep the deep, dreamless sleep period that most of us experience during the first few hours of the night.
To find out, they gathered two groups of study participants, all of whom were native German speakers, and gave them a series of Dutch-to-German word pairs to learn at 10 pm. One group was then instructed to get some sleep, while the other group was kept awake.For the next few hours both groups listened to an audio playback of the word pairs they’d already been exposed to and some they hadn’t yet heard.
The researchers then re-gathered both groups at 2 am and gave them a test of the Dutch words to uncover any differences in learning. And indeed there was a difference:
“The group that listened to the words during sleep did better at recalling the words they’d heard”
The simple yet potent trick the researchers employed is known as verbal cueing, and this isn’t the first claim made for its success while sleeping. But what makes this study different is that it puts a finer point on the conditions necessary for this trick to actually work namely, it only works when we’ve already been exposed to the verbal cues before we sleep.
Internet is always helpful
The researchers added a techie dimension by conducting electroencephalographic (EEG)recordings of the sleeping participants brains to track neural electrical activity during the learning period.
They found that learning the foreign words overlapped with the appearance of theta brain waves, an intriguing result since theta is the brain wave state often associated with heightened learning while awake (usually we’re in either the high-frequency, high-alertness alpha or beta states while awake, but it’s thought possible to induce theta state slower in frequency than alpha and beta through concentration techniques).
What’s possible in a week? If you dedicated seven days to the achievement of one goal, how ambitious could you make this goal? These were the questions that the multilingual friends Katy and Sara posed themselves when they determined to learn English in one week, to prove that it can be done and anyone can do it with the right methods.
They would attempt to liberate themselves from the distractions and responsibilities of modern-day life in order to cram eight hours of study time and I was observing some of the world’s most capable language learners at work.
The language learning expert: Sara
The friends set themselves the challenge of learning a language in a week in order to stretch themselves, and then it was a question of choosing which language to learn. English presented itself as a natural option; there are nigh on 300,000 English speakers in Germany’s capital, and the areas are dotted with stores adorned with signs in English.
“Truly understanding one’s environment requires one to first understand English”
The first operational step in the friends learning process was to decorate the entire apartment with sticky notes. This had an almost ceremonial touch to it as the friends delved into dictionaries and proceeded to label everything with its corresponding English name.
Within the space of about an hour it was impossible to carry out any menial task, be it making a coffee or flicking off a light switch, without first being presented with at least three different words related to this action.
Sara learning in the park
The importance of the other twin’s presence became immediately apparent as Katy and Sara delegated responsibilities for rooms to decorate with sticky notes. This simple task was augmented by continuous little tests that they would spring on one another, and the fact that they split up their day slightly differently and studied different topics meant that each twin became a source of knowledge for the other.
The most extraordinary moment came towards the end of the week!
The friends simply switched their everyday conversations to English, asking one another if they wanted tea or coffee, were ready to cook dinner or when they were going to leave the house.
Katy and Sara had numerous micro-challenges throughout the week. On the first day they were visited by a English friend who greeted them in English and complimented them on how quickly they’d picked up their first words and phrases.
They then learned the names of fruits and the numbers from one to a billion so that they could visit the English market (although they refrained from purchasing nine hundred thousand kumquats). Displaying their haul after their first functional exchange in English, they beamed with pride and a palpable sense of accomplishment before marching back home to study further.
Katy playing audio lessons
On our second visit to the brother’s apartment 24 hours into the week, we found them sampling dozens of different kinds of English snacks.
Like kids staring at the backs of cereal packs before heading to school, the nutritional information and various special offers and competitions on the packaging were analysed during snack breaks.
There was no moment of complete removal from the language learning process during the eight hours that the friends had allotted to it.
They were constantly using their existing knowledge to support the ever-growing knowledge of English, this being the root of their success.
“you will likely come across words that share common origins with your native tongue”
The friends spent a lot of time engrossed in books or on their computers and apps, flicking and swiping their way through exercises eagerly, but at other times they were to be found searching busily for English radio stations and write-ups of English football games on the web.
There is no definitive method to learn a language fluently
All too often, people enter their weekly language class to converse with their teacher, but then barely have any contact with other speakers and that’s not enough.
The old saying that we can solve problems more effectively when we sleep on it may be especially true if the problem we’re trying to solve is learning a new language.
Motivated Katy out to the library
Researchers from two Swiss universities wanted to know if they could enhance the learning of words from a foreign language by exposing people to the words during non-rapid eye movement sleep the deep, dreamless sleep period that most of us experience during the first few hours of the night.
To find out, they gathered two groups of study participants, all of whom were native German speakers, and gave them a series of Dutch-to-German word pairs to learn at 10 pm. One group was then instructed to get some sleep, while the other group was kept awake.For the next few hours both groups listened to an audio playback of the word pairs they’d already been exposed to and some they hadn’t yet heard.
The researchers then re-gathered both groups at 2 am and gave them a test of the Dutch words to uncover any differences in learning. And indeed there was a difference:
“The group that listened to the words during sleep did better at recalling the words they’d heard”
The simple yet potent trick the researchers employed is known as verbal cueing, and this isn’t the first claim made for its success while sleeping. But what makes this study different is that it puts a finer point on the conditions necessary for this trick to actually work namely, it only works when we’ve already been exposed to the verbal cues before we sleep.
Internet is always helpful
The researchers added a techie dimension by conducting electroencephalographic (EEG)recordings of the sleeping participants brains to track neural electrical activity during the learning period.
They found that learning the foreign words overlapped with the appearance of theta brain waves, an intriguing result since theta is the brain wave state often associated with heightened learning while awake (usually we’re in either the high-frequency, high-alertness alpha or beta states while awake, but it’s thought possible to induce theta state slower in frequency than alpha and beta through concentration techniques).
What’s possible in a week? If you dedicated seven days to the achievement of one goal, how ambitious could you make this goal? These were the questions that the multilingual friends Katy and Sara posed themselves when they determined to learn English in one week, to prove that it can be done and anyone can do it with the right methods.
They would attempt to liberate themselves from the distractions and responsibilities of modern-day life in order to cram eight hours of study time and I was observing some of the world’s most capable language learners at work.
The language learning expert: Sara
The friends set themselves the challenge of learning a language in a week in order to stretch themselves, and then it was a question of choosing which language to learn. English presented itself as a natural option; there are nigh on 300,000 English speakers in Germany’s capital, and the areas are dotted with stores adorned with signs in English.
“Truly understanding one’s environment requires one to first understand English”
The first operational step in the friends learning process was to decorate the entire apartment with sticky notes. This had an almost ceremonial touch to it as the friends delved into dictionaries and proceeded to label everything with its corresponding English name.
Within the space of about an hour it was impossible to carry out any menial task, be it making a coffee or flicking off a light switch, without first being presented with at least three different words related to this action.
Sara learning in the park
The importance of the other twin’s presence became immediately apparent as Katy and Sara delegated responsibilities for rooms to decorate with sticky notes. This simple task was augmented by continuous little tests that they would spring on one another, and the fact that they split up their day slightly differently and studied different topics meant that each twin became a source of knowledge for the other.
The most extraordinary moment came towards the end of the week!
The friends simply switched their everyday conversations to English, asking one another if they wanted tea or coffee, were ready to cook dinner or when they were going to leave the house.
Katy and Sara had numerous micro-challenges throughout the week. On the first day they were visited by a English friend who greeted them in English and complimented them on how quickly they’d picked up their first words and phrases.
They then learned the names of fruits and the numbers from one to a billion so that they could visit the English market (although they refrained from purchasing nine hundred thousand kumquats). Displaying their haul after their first functional exchange in English, they beamed with pride and a palpable sense of accomplishment before marching back home to study further.
Katy playing audio lessons
On our second visit to the brother’s apartment 24 hours into the week, we found them sampling dozens of different kinds of English snacks.
Like kids staring at the backs of cereal packs before heading to school, the nutritional information and various special offers and competitions on the packaging were analysed during snack breaks.
There was no moment of complete removal from the language learning process during the eight hours that the friends had allotted to it.
They were constantly using their existing knowledge to support the ever-growing knowledge of English, this being the root of their success.
“you will likely come across words that share common origins with your native tongue”
The friends spent a lot of time engrossed in books or on their computers and apps, flicking and swiping their way through exercises eagerly, but at other times they were to be found searching busily for English radio stations and write-ups of English football games on the web.
There is no definitive method to learn a language fluently
All too often, people enter their weekly language class to converse with their teacher, but then barely have any contact with other speakers and that’s not enough.
The old saying that we can solve problems more effectively when we sleep on it may be especially true if the problem we’re trying to solve is learning a new language.
Motivated Katy out to the library
Researchers from two Swiss universities wanted to know if they could enhance the learning of words from a foreign language by exposing people to the words during non-rapid eye movement sleep the deep, dreamless sleep period that most of us experience during the first few hours of the night.
To find out, they gathered two groups of study participants, all of whom were native German speakers, and gave them a series of Dutch-to-German word pairs to learn at 10 pm. One group was then instructed to get some sleep, while the other group was kept awake.For the next few hours both groups listened to an audio playback of the word pairs they’d already been exposed to and some they hadn’t yet heard.
The researchers then re-gathered both groups at 2 am and gave them a test of the Dutch words to uncover any differences in learning. And indeed there was a difference:
“The group that listened to the words during sleep did better at recalling the words they’d heard”
The simple yet potent trick the researchers employed is known as verbal cueing, and this isn’t the first claim made for its success while sleeping. But what makes this study different is that it puts a finer point on the conditions necessary for this trick to actually work namely, it only works when we’ve already been exposed to the verbal cues before we sleep.
Internet is always helpful
The researchers added a techie dimension by conducting electroencephalographic (EEG)recordings of the sleeping participants brains to track neural electrical activity during the learning period.
They found that learning the foreign words overlapped with the appearance of theta brain waves, an intriguing result since theta is the brain wave state often associated with heightened learning while awake (usually we’re in either the high-frequency, high-alertness alpha or beta states while awake, but it’s thought possible to induce theta state slower in frequency than alpha and beta through concentration techniques).
What’s possible in a week? If you dedicated seven days to the achievement of one goal, how ambitious could you make this goal? These were the questions that the multilingual friends Katy and Sara posed themselves when they determined to learn English in one week, to prove that it can be done and anyone can do it with the right methods.
They would attempt to liberate themselves from the distractions and responsibilities of modern-day life in order to cram eight hours of study time and I was observing some of the world’s most capable language learners at work.
The language learning expert: Sara
The friends set themselves the challenge of learning a language in a week in order to stretch themselves, and then it was a question of choosing which language to learn. English presented itself as a natural option; there are nigh on 300,000 English speakers in Germany’s capital, and the areas are dotted with stores adorned with signs in English.
“Truly understanding one’s environment requires one to first understand English”
The first operational step in the friends learning process was to decorate the entire apartment with sticky notes. This had an almost ceremonial touch to it as the friends delved into dictionaries and proceeded to label everything with its corresponding English name.
Within the space of about an hour it was impossible to carry out any menial task, be it making a coffee or flicking off a light switch, without first being presented with at least three different words related to this action.
Sara learning in the park
The importance of the other twin’s presence became immediately apparent as Katy and Sara delegated responsibilities for rooms to decorate with sticky notes. This simple task was augmented by continuous little tests that they would spring on one another, and the fact that they split up their day slightly differently and studied different topics meant that each twin became a source of knowledge for the other.
The most extraordinary moment came towards the end of the week!
The friends simply switched their everyday conversations to English, asking one another if they wanted tea or coffee, were ready to cook dinner or when they were going to leave the house.
Katy and Sara had numerous micro-challenges throughout the week. On the first day they were visited by a English friend who greeted them in English and complimented them on how quickly they’d picked up their first words and phrases.
They then learned the names of fruits and the numbers from one to a billion so that they could visit the English market (although they refrained from purchasing nine hundred thousand kumquats). Displaying their haul after their first functional exchange in English, they beamed with pride and a palpable sense of accomplishment before marching back home to study further.
Katy playing audio lessons
On our second visit to the brother’s apartment 24 hours into the week, we found them sampling dozens of different kinds of English snacks.
Like kids staring at the backs of cereal packs before heading to school, the nutritional information and various special offers and competitions on the packaging were analysed during snack breaks.
There was no moment of complete removal from the language learning process during the eight hours that the friends had allotted to it.
They were constantly using their existing knowledge to support the ever-growing knowledge of English, this being the root of their success.
“you will likely come across words that share common origins with your native tongue”
The friends spent a lot of time engrossed in books or on their computers and apps, flicking and swiping their way through exercises eagerly, but at other times they were to be found searching busily for English radio stations and write-ups of English football games on the web.
There is no definitive method to learn a language fluently
All too often, people enter their weekly language class to converse with their teacher, but then barely have any contact with other speakers and that’s not enough.
The old saying that we can solve problems more effectively when we sleep on it may be especially true if the problem we’re trying to solve is learning a new language.
Motivated Katy out to the library
Researchers from two Swiss universities wanted to know if they could enhance the learning of words from a foreign language by exposing people to the words during non-rapid eye movement sleep the deep, dreamless sleep period that most of us experience during the first few hours of the night.
To find out, they gathered two groups of study participants, all of whom were native German speakers, and gave them a series of Dutch-to-German word pairs to learn at 10 pm. One group was then instructed to get some sleep, while the other group was kept awake.For the next few hours both groups listened to an audio playback of the word pairs they’d already been exposed to and some they hadn’t yet heard.
The researchers then re-gathered both groups at 2 am and gave them a test of the Dutch words to uncover any differences in learning. And indeed there was a difference:
“The group that listened to the words during sleep did better at recalling the words they’d heard”
The simple yet potent trick the researchers employed is known as verbal cueing, and this isn’t the first claim made for its success while sleeping. But what makes this study different is that it puts a finer point on the conditions necessary for this trick to actually work namely, it only works when we’ve already been exposed to the verbal cues before we sleep.
Internet is always helpful
The researchers added a techie dimension by conducting electroencephalographic (EEG)recordings of the sleeping participants brains to track neural electrical activity during the learning period.
They found that learning the foreign words overlapped with the appearance of theta brain waves, an intriguing result since theta is the brain wave state often associated with heightened learning while awake (usually we’re in either the high-frequency, high-alertness alpha or beta states while awake, but it’s thought possible to induce theta state slower in frequency than alpha and beta through concentration techniques).
What’s possible in a week? If you dedicated seven days to the achievement of one goal, how ambitious could you make this goal? These were the questions that the multilingual friends Katy and Sara posed themselves when they determined to learn English in one week, to prove that it can be done and anyone can do it with the right methods.
They would attempt to liberate themselves from the distractions and responsibilities of modern-day life in order to cram eight hours of study time and I was observing some of the world’s most capable language learners at work.
The language learning expert: Sara
The friends set themselves the challenge of learning a language in a week in order to stretch themselves, and then it was a question of choosing which language to learn. English presented itself as a natural option; there are nigh on 300,000 English speakers in Germany’s capital, and the areas are dotted with stores adorned with signs in English.
“Truly understanding one’s environment requires one to first understand English”
The first operational step in the friends learning process was to decorate the entire apartment with sticky notes. This had an almost ceremonial touch to it as the friends delved into dictionaries and proceeded to label everything with its corresponding English name.
Within the space of about an hour it was impossible to carry out any menial task, be it making a coffee or flicking off a light switch, without first being presented with at least three different words related to this action.
Sara learning in the park
The importance of the other twin’s presence became immediately apparent as Katy and Sara delegated responsibilities for rooms to decorate with sticky notes. This simple task was augmented by continuous little tests that they would spring on one another, and the fact that they split up their day slightly differently and studied different topics meant that each twin became a source of knowledge for the other.
The most extraordinary moment came towards the end of the week!
The friends simply switched their everyday conversations to English, asking one another if they wanted tea or coffee, were ready to cook dinner or when they were going to leave the house.
Katy and Sara had numerous micro-challenges throughout the week. On the first day they were visited by a English friend who greeted them in English and complimented them on how quickly they’d picked up their first words and phrases.
They then learned the names of fruits and the numbers from one to a billion so that they could visit the English market (although they refrained from purchasing nine hundred thousand kumquats). Displaying their haul after their first functional exchange in English, they beamed with pride and a palpable sense of accomplishment before marching back home to study further.
Katy playing audio lessons
On our second visit to the brother’s apartment 24 hours into the week, we found them sampling dozens of different kinds of English snacks.
Like kids staring at the backs of cereal packs before heading to school, the nutritional information and various special offers and competitions on the packaging were analysed during snack breaks.
There was no moment of complete removal from the language learning process during the eight hours that the friends had allotted to it.
They were constantly using their existing knowledge to support the ever-growing knowledge of English, this being the root of their success.
“you will likely come across words that share common origins with your native tongue”
The friends spent a lot of time engrossed in books or on their computers and apps, flicking and swiping their way through exercises eagerly, but at other times they were to be found searching busily for English radio stations and write-ups of English football games on the web.
There is no definitive method to learn a language fluently
All too often, people enter their weekly language class to converse with their teacher, but then barely have any contact with other speakers and that’s not enough.
The old saying that we can solve problems more effectively when we sleep on it may be especially true if the problem we’re trying to solve is learning a new language.
Motivated Katy out to the library
Researchers from two Swiss universities wanted to know if they could enhance the learning of words from a foreign language by exposing people to the words during non-rapid eye movement sleep the deep, dreamless sleep period that most of us experience during the first few hours of the night.
To find out, they gathered two groups of study participants, all of whom were native German speakers, and gave them a series of Dutch-to-German word pairs to learn at 10 pm. One group was then instructed to get some sleep, while the other group was kept awake.For the next few hours both groups listened to an audio playback of the word pairs they’d already been exposed to and some they hadn’t yet heard.
The researchers then re-gathered both groups at 2 am and gave them a test of the Dutch words to uncover any differences in learning. And indeed there was a difference:
“The group that listened to the words during sleep did better at recalling the words they’d heard”
The simple yet potent trick the researchers employed is known as verbal cueing, and this isn’t the first claim made for its success while sleeping. But what makes this study different is that it puts a finer point on the conditions necessary for this trick to actually work namely, it only works when we’ve already been exposed to the verbal cues before we sleep.
Internet is always helpful
The researchers added a techie dimension by conducting electroencephalographic (EEG)recordings of the sleeping participants brains to track neural electrical activity during the learning period.
They found that learning the foreign words overlapped with the appearance of theta brain waves, an intriguing result since theta is the brain wave state often associated with heightened learning while awake (usually we’re in either the high-frequency, high-alertness alpha or beta states while awake, but it’s thought possible to induce theta state slower in frequency than alpha and beta through concentration techniques).
What’s possible in a week? If you dedicated seven days to the achievement of one goal, how ambitious could you make this goal? These were the questions that the multilingual friends Katy and Sara posed themselves when they determined to learn English in one week, to prove that it can be done and anyone can do it with the right methods.
They would attempt to liberate themselves from the distractions and responsibilities of modern-day life in order to cram eight hours of study time and I was observing some of the world’s most capable language learners at work.
The language learning expert: Sara
The friends set themselves the challenge of learning a language in a week in order to stretch themselves, and then it was a question of choosing which language to learn. English presented itself as a natural option; there are nigh on 300,000 English speakers in Germany’s capital, and the areas are dotted with stores adorned with signs in English.
“Truly understanding one’s environment requires one to first understand English”
The first operational step in the friends learning process was to decorate the entire apartment with sticky notes. This had an almost ceremonial touch to it as the friends delved into dictionaries and proceeded to label everything with its corresponding English name.
Within the space of about an hour it was impossible to carry out any menial task, be it making a coffee or flicking off a light switch, without first being presented with at least three different words related to this action.
Sara learning in the park
The importance of the other twin’s presence became immediately apparent as Katy and Sara delegated responsibilities for rooms to decorate with sticky notes. This simple task was augmented by continuous little tests that they would spring on one another, and the fact that they split up their day slightly differently and studied different topics meant that each twin became a source of knowledge for the other.
The most extraordinary moment came towards the end of the week!
The friends simply switched their everyday conversations to English, asking one another if they wanted tea or coffee, were ready to cook dinner or when they were going to leave the house.
Katy and Sara had numerous micro-challenges throughout the week. On the first day they were visited by a English friend who greeted them in English and complimented them on how quickly they’d picked up their first words and phrases.
They then learned the names of fruits and the numbers from one to a billion so that they could visit the English market (although they refrained from purchasing nine hundred thousand kumquats). Displaying their haul after their first functional exchange in English, they beamed with pride and a palpable sense of accomplishment before marching back home to study further.
Katy playing audio lessons
On our second visit to the brother’s apartment 24 hours into the week, we found them sampling dozens of different kinds of English snacks.
Like kids staring at the backs of cereal packs before heading to school, the nutritional information and various special offers and competitions on the packaging were analysed during snack breaks.
There was no moment of complete removal from the language learning process during the eight hours that the friends had allotted to it.
They were constantly using their existing knowledge to support the ever-growing knowledge of English, this being the root of their success.
“you will likely come across words that share common origins with your native tongue”
The friends spent a lot of time engrossed in books or on their computers and apps, flicking and swiping their way through exercises eagerly, but at other times they were to be found searching busily for English radio stations and write-ups of English football games on the web.
There is no definitive method to learn a language fluently
All too often, people enter their weekly language class to converse with their teacher, but then barely have any contact with other speakers and that’s not enough.
The old saying that we can solve problems more effectively when we sleep on it may be especially true if the problem we’re trying to solve is learning a new language.
Motivated Katy out to the library
Researchers from two Swiss universities wanted to know if they could enhance the learning of words from a foreign language by exposing people to the words during non-rapid eye movement sleep the deep, dreamless sleep period that most of us experience during the first few hours of the night.
To find out, they gathered two groups of study participants, all of whom were native German speakers, and gave them a series of Dutch-to-German word pairs to learn at 10 pm. One group was then instructed to get some sleep, while the other group was kept awake.For the next few hours both groups listened to an audio playback of the word pairs they’d already been exposed to and some they hadn’t yet heard.
The researchers then re-gathered both groups at 2 am and gave them a test of the Dutch words to uncover any differences in learning. And indeed there was a difference:
“The group that listened to the words during sleep did better at recalling the words they’d heard”
The simple yet potent trick the researchers employed is known as verbal cueing, and this isn’t the first claim made for its success while sleeping. But what makes this study different is that it puts a finer point on the conditions necessary for this trick to actually work namely, it only works when we’ve already been exposed to the verbal cues before we sleep.
Internet is always helpful
The researchers added a techie dimension by conducting electroencephalographic (EEG)recordings of the sleeping participants brains to track neural electrical activity during the learning period.
They found that learning the foreign words overlapped with the appearance of theta brain waves, an intriguing result since theta is the brain wave state often associated with heightened learning while awake (usually we’re in either the high-frequency, high-alertness alpha or beta states while awake, but it’s thought possible to induce theta state slower in frequency than alpha and beta through concentration techniques).
