Listening to foreign language while asleep can help you learn it, study finds

Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. According to research by the Universities of Zurich and Fribourg listening to recordings of new words while you sleep could actually help you learn them. Published in the Cerebral Cortex Oxford Journal, the study asked a group of 60 German-speaking participants to learn pairs of words in Dutch. As a result the researchers suggest that listening to words while you catch forty-winks could actually help you learn. “Playing back words you don’t know while you’re asleep has no effect.” What’s more, the researchers found that the most learning occurred during NREM sleep – the deep, dreamless sleep that tends to happen during the first half of the night.