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Multilingual Books May Newsletter

Thanks for reading the Multilingual Books newsletter, your source for foreign language news, information, and product information and specials from Multilingual Books. This is also available as a web page at our website, www.multilingualbooks.com. In this issue: Feature Article - Sleep boosts ability to learn language Product News - Foreign Service Institute Greek 1 Releaased on CD - Top 10 Products Featured Site - Modern Language Association Language Trivia Contest - Answer correctly and win FREE language products! Newsletter Specials - Special offers only for our newsletter subscribers! Send to a Friend Please send this along to anyone you think might be interested by clicking the link above. Unsubscribe/Subscribe Information This newsletter is intended as a service to language enthusiasts and customers of Multilingual Books. You have received this because our records indicate you have ordered products from us or have asked to join our mailing list. If this message was unwanted, we apologize and offer an automated unsubscribe service: Unsubscribe, or, send an e-mail from the address you want to unsubscribe to multilingualbooks-unsubscribe@topica.email-publisher.com. If you were forwarded this newsletter and would like to subscribe, we offer automated subscription: Subscribe, or, send an e-mail from the address you want to subscribe to multilingualbooks-subscribe@topica.email-publisher.com. Thank you.		Featured This Issue
		Trivia Contest! Win Language Prizes! Check out our Newsletter Specials featuring: Super Sale on Platiquemos! FREE Player with Cassette Course!

Feature Article

Sleep boosts ability to learn language
Public release from eurekalert.org

Scientists at the University of Chicago have demonstrated that sleeping has an important and previously unrecognized impact on improving people's ability to learn language.

Researchers find that ability of students to retain knowledge about words is improved by sleep, even when the students seemed to forget some of what they learned during the day before the next night's sleep. This paper, "Consolidation During Sleep of Perceptual Learning of Spoken Language," was published in the journal Nature. The paper was prepared by researcher Kimberly Fenn, Howard Nusbaum, Professor of Psychology, and Daniel Margoliash, Professor in Organismal Biology and Anatomy.

"Sleep has at least two separate effects on learning," the authors write. "Sleep consolidates memories, protecting them against subsequent interference or decay. Sleep also appears to 'recover' or restore memories."

Scientists have long hypothesized that sleep has an impact on learning, but the new study is the first to provide scientific evidence that brain activity promotes higher-level types of learning while we sleep. Although the study dealt specifically with word learning, the findings may be relevant to other learning, Nusbaum said. "We have known that people learn better if they learn smaller bits of information over a period of days rather than all at once. This research could show how sleep helps us retain what we learn."

In fact, the idea for the study arose from discussions Nusbaum and Fenn had with Margoliash, who studies vocal (song) learning in birds. "We were surprised several years ago to discover that birds apparently 'dream of singing' and this might be important for song learning," Margoliash said.

For their study, the team tested college student understanding of a series of common words produced in a mechanical, robotic way by a voice synthesizer that made the words difficult to understand. They first measured the students' ability to recognize the words. They then trained them to recognize the words and then tested them again to see how effective the training was.

None of the students heard the same word more than once, so they had to learn how to figure out the pattern of sounds the synthesizer was making. "It is something like learning how to understand someone speaking with a foreign accent." Nusbaum said.

The team tested three groups of students. The control group was tested one hour after they were trained and recognized 54 percent of the words, as opposed to the 21 percent they recognized before training. The scientists next trained students at 9 a.m. and tested them at 9 p.m., 12 hours later. During that time, the students had lost much of their learning and only made a 10 percentage point gain over their pre-test scores. A third group was tested at 9 a.m. after having been trained at 9 p.m. After a night's sleep, those students improved their performance by 19 percentage points over their pre-test scores. The students who were trained at 9 a.m. were tested again after a night's sleep, and their scores improved to the same level as the other students who had had a night's sleep.

"We were shocked by what we found," Nusbaum said. "We were particularly intrigued by the loss of learning the students experienced during the day and then recovered."

Researchers could not determine if the reduction in performance during the day was due to students forgetting what they'd learned, their listening to other speech or their thinking about unrelated issues during the day.

"If performance is reduced by interference, sleep might strengthen relevant associations and weaken irrelevant associations, improving access to relevant memories," the authors write. If information was forgotten, sleep might help people restore a memory.

Margoliash said, "Although these initial results cannot explain what is lost during the day, the question is very amenable to follow-up experiments."

Fenn added, "We are currently considering an FMRI study to investigate brain activity at the end of a day's learning compared with activity patterns after a night's sleep."

Read the full article at: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-10/uocm-sba100603.php

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Product News

Foreign Service Institute Greek 1 Released on CD
Multilingual Books is proud to announce our latest FSI (Foreign Service Institute) course CD release: FSI Greek 1! Our exclusive versions have the quality and convenience of a CD along with the top-notch language teaching methods that the Foreign Service is famous for. Each new version has been carefully digitally remastered for greatly improved sound quality as compared to the commonly available cassette courses or even other FSI vendors and is exclusive to Multilingual Books. We now have FSI or DLI courses available remastered on CD in over 15 languages including: Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), Cantonese, French, German, Hebrew, Iraqi, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Tagalog, and Thai. Find out more about our FSI courses at our FSI page. Find out more about our Greek offerings at our Greek page.

May Top Products

1. Platiquemos Spanish Course 2. Talk Now CD-ROM Language Courses 3. Spanish On The Go Preloaded MP3 Player 4. Multilingual Books FSI Courses - CD and cassette 5. FSI Italian Course - CD 6. Foreign Language Videos 7. Musical Spanish 8. FSI Philippine Headstart Course 9. Tell Me More Language Software 10. Language Littles Speaking Dolls

Tell Me More Language Software Platiquemos Spanish Course Spanish On The Go

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Trivia Contest

Last month's trivia questions and answers: The spring and summer months are a great time to take a vacation. What is the English translation and language of origin of these travel-themed words? 1. Flugzeug - Airplane, German 2. Voz - Train, Bosnian or Serbian 3. Samochód - Automobile, Polish 4. Vliegveld - Airport, Dutch 5. Valigia - Suitcase, Italian This month's winner is Carol Buchholz. Thanks to everyone who entered and congratulations to this month's winner. This month's trivia quiz: What are the 10 most spoken languages other than English in the USA? The answers and the winner will be in our next newsletter. Winner will receive their choice of one Talk Now or World Talk language CD-ROM! No purchase necessary to enter. E-mail your entry to: info@multilingualbooks.com

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Featured Website

Modern Language Association
From the site: "Founded in 1883, the Modern Language Association of America provides opportunities for its members to share their scholarly findings and teaching experiences with colleagues and to discuss trends in the academy. MLA members host an annual convention and other meetings, work with related organizations, and sustain one of the finest publishing programs in the humanities. For over a hundred years, members have worked to strengthen the study and teaching of language and literature." The interactive Language Map on the site is of particular interest for anyone interested in language in the USA.

Check it out at http://www.mla.org/homepage.

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May Newsletter Specials

Platiquemos Super Special - Save $100 + Talk Now FREE! Platiquemos Spanish Course The world's best Spanish course just got better! Don Casteel, fluent in several languages and a former Foreign Service Officer, is well trained in the FSI method. He has completely revised and improved "the course that works." This 2002 Edition has improved audio with both male and female voices and over 200 illustrations with factoids, and the content is more contemporary than ever. This new version has retained the same grammatical and language content that has made this the most widely sold course on the language market. Eight levels are available to lead you to mastery of Spanish. Once completed you will be able to understand spoken and written Spanish; it will also allow you to actively engage in conversations with an abundant vocabulary of several thousand words. Included as a free bonus is the Talk Now Spanish CD-ROM course AND the Collins Spanish CD-ROM dictionary! This gives you a complete Spanish language learning center for your home, office, or school for a fantastic bargain. Platiquemos information and ordering... Talk Now CD-ROM Course Talk Now is a beginning-level language course on CD-ROM available in over 50 languages from Afrikaans to Zulu, and is excellent for travelers who must pick up a language in a hurry. Available for Windows and Macintosh computers. We recommend the Talk Now! series for any language beginner who wants an entertaining self-study course to learn basic phrases, colors, numbers, food, shopping, time, countries, and so on. World Talk picks up from Talk Now! at an intermediate level, and follows on with over 20 languages in the same format of interactive learning with entertaining games and drills. Talk Now information and ordering... For a very limited time, order 4 levels of Platiquemos and receive $100 off plus Talk Now Spanish FREE! One week only. Use promo code MB-PSS-525 to receive this special. Order today! Platiquemos information and ordering...

FREE Shipping on Any Childrens Item Purchase Over $50! We are proud to offer a great selection of language materials for children! See our Children's Books, Courses, and Software page for an overview, plus we have individual children's sections in Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish, and Vietnamese. Save on our great selection of childrens items for one week only! Use promo code MB-KFS-525 to receive this special.

FREE Player With FSI Cassette Courses! Foreign Service Institute Courses Multilingual Books now manufactures the entire line of Foreign Service Institute (FSI) courses, available in over 30 languages. These courses are considered by many to be the best and most complete language courses available. Some courses are now available digitally remastered on CD. FSI course information and ordering... Instant Replay Digital Cassette Recorder This new language-learning cassette recorder/player automatically replays selections of language tapes while you listen. This specially designed cassette deck has many built-in features making language learning easier than ever! One option is to simply play the tape and let the machine replay each sentence for you three times, and then move on the the next sentence. Another option lets you select the section to repeat up to 15 minutes. For example, after hearing the phrase "Today is a beautiful day" from this cassette, you can have the same phrase instantly replayed over and over again with just one touch of a button. With instant replay, you will never have to rewind a cassette tape to replay the materials on it! Instant Replay information and ordering... For a limited time, we are offering our newsletter subscribers a free Instant Replay Digital Cassette Recorder ($49 value) with purchase of one of our FSI courses on cassette priced over $100! Offer good for one week only, so act now! Use promo code MB-FFP-525 to receive this special. FSI course information and ordering...

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