Man Falls into a Coma and Wake up Speaking Mandarin Chinese

The Strange Case of Ben MacHanon

Ben McHanon

Until recently, Ben McHanon was a normal person. Australian, with a taste for travel and aspirations to see the world, he took a Chinese mandarin lessons in his youth but never could master perfectly the language and he ended up giving up. The 22 years old young, had a serious automobile accident in the year 2012, which generated some brain injuries to him and had him in a coma for a week. For relief of their relatives, the young man regained consciousness without greater consequences... except, of course, that had forgotten to speak English. But fortunately for him not lost the ability to communicate, because what forgot of English seemed to have learned in mandarin.

"I do not speak my native language anymore"

The case was completely surprising, since Ben was utterly incapable of articulating ideas which was their native language and instead acquired a fluency and naturalness surprising in mandarin - that which at the time was difficult to him. Doctors were surprised and spent some time until they were successful in starting to explain the case of the young Australian.
It seems that brain regions dedicated to the learning of a new language are not necessarily the same used to speak a language already managed, and therefore a brain injury could lead to the 'activation' of the first in a context in which the person needs to communicate.

Physicians also clarify that it is impossible that a person in fact "acquire" knowledge after an accident. Is NOT that McHanon learn mandarin, is that his brain developed quickly connections with respect to this language that were unnecessary when he spoke English, and that knowledge present in your subconscious soon acquired an appearance more "aware".

In any case, the fact is that a man who barely mumbled mandarin ended to learn it in a few days and become a fluent language speaker. And what is even more interesting: as the weeks passed and reduced the inflammation on his brain was slowly remembering English... but never forgot the mandarin. Currently, McHanon is perfectly bilingual.

Ben McHanon

Others Cases

Although it may seem surprising, that the case of McHanon isn't the only referred to individuals that, from one moment to another, forgot their native language and began to speak in another language. One of the most dramatic cases occurred when a 13-year-old awoke in his native Croatia to discover that had forgotten to speak Croatian and it could only express herself in German. And something similar happened to Michael Boatwright, an American who in the year 2013 woke up speaking Swedish. In his case, it was impossible to remember their native language and eventually resign himself to speak his new language permanently and relearn English.


In general, experts say that this is possible when a language is in the process of learning and some type of brain damage makes the person affected your region's speech. In these circumstances, the "learning zone" (which is not fully defined and may well not exist in a single localized area) takes the baton and is responsible for the communication of the affected individual. With regard to McHanon, their sudden learning of mandarin it became in an unic opportunity : now has a wife of Chinese origin , is a guide tourist in that country and has begun to present a very successful reality show. As they say, there is no evil that good doesn't come.

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