Adderall and second language acquisition

[American_Frenchie]

SWIM is curious if anyone knows where he might be able to find research and/or first-person accounts describing personal experience with learning secondary languages, specifically college-level, and what effect -- if any -- has Adderall had on your ability to do so.

SWIM is assuming that Adderall has a positive effect on language acquistion skills when administered daily at prescription-level doses, greatly improving levels of interest and enthusiasm, as well as confidence levels, making the monumental challenge of picking up another language during adulthood far easier and significantly more fulfilling. SWIM must emphasize, however, that this is merely an assumption. A cursory Google search did not reveal anything at all published by the scientific community that would back this up. Then again, SWIM is somewhat computer illiterate, even when it comes to google.

Anyways, SWIM would love to hear about anyone whose attempts to learn other languages have been affected by Adderall, as well as a few links or references to scientific research -- if any -- that has been done in the area of language learning and Amphetamines. Thank you.

[svenghali]

Actually, your name reminded SWIM of his descent, and he recalls taking a trip to the South of France with a bunch of his friends. During this time, he was on a short-lived amphetamine binge (until he found an unforgettable hash hookup haha) and really noticed the change in his comprehension and ability to respond to others in French. However, SWIM's mother is French, so he has a little (but sadly, not as much as he'd like) experience with the language. Unfortunately, I can't find any scientific research pertaining to this, but I can say firsthand that 30-45 mg in SWIM's brain made a French conversation a lot easier, and accumulation of vocabulary was noticeably improved.

[Bajeda]

Swim found that while added focus and concentration was helpful, it was very easy to take too much adderall and find that he got easily distracted from his work. Arabic grammar was especially tenacious, and 5mg of adderall was helpful, but any more and swim would simply want to go do something else as he got too jittery.

Overall swim finds that adderall is more helpful with math and sciences than languages or social sciences or humanities, though it can be helpful with any subject under certain circumstances.

[The_Secret_Life]

Almost certainly it would help. Its speed, an amphetamine type. "uppers" types of drugs have been reportedly used by many known professional to increase focus, productivity, and the unique effect of helping you stay on a train of thought. Name escapes me but one I think of is an author that wrote a famous novel in one 6 day coke binge.

swim would have preferred to have coke or speed available when he wrote his PhD thesis. He wrote the whole thing in thirty days, but with massive consumption of cigs and coffee.

If you are needing references for a paper, try searching for creativity, learning, memorization etc.

[angela20377]

The only personal experience that swim has with this is that several times when she is on adderall and falls asleep several hours later, she dreams in spanish. Swim is not fluent in spanish but is familiar with it, but finds that the dreams are interesting because she has heard from past teachers that when one dreams in another language that they are trying to learn it means that they have reached a new level of comprehension of the language.

[Bajeda]

Better than adderall

[darawk]

Originally Posted by The_Secret_Life

Almost certainly it would help. Its speed, an amphetamine type. "uppers" types of drugs have been reportedly used by many known professional to increase focus, productivity, and the unique effect of helping you stay on a train of thought. Name escapes me but one I think of is an author that wrote a famous novel in one 6 day coke binge.

Yes, that would be Robert Luis Stevenson. Many, many, many famous people have used amphetamines and other stimulants to help them focus and work harder/longer. Unfortunately, western medicine stigmatizes any attempt to use drugs to enhance or improve the human mind, body or life and so there is probably very little, if any, research on what you're looking for. You might have better results if you phrase your search in a way that implies an initial deficit being cured by adderall though(e.g. "children with learning disabilities, adderal, foreign language" as search terms to find a study that used ability to learn a foreign language as a metric, instead of one specifically focusing on enhancing the uptake of other languages).

[Bajeda]

I also wouldn't be surprised if the Defense Language Institute or a similar institution commissioned studies on this, though they may not be publically available. I may take a look and see if there is anything like that, as if anyone would look into legitimite use of stimulants or other drugs to aid in second language acquisition it would be the military or intelligence agencies.

Another place to look would be textbooks on SLA. There are a few good ones I know of so I'll have to check. I would think at least one of them would have a section on medications used to help with SLA, maybe for children with learning disabilities as darawk mentioned.

[ISeeShadowPeople]

SWIM is curious if anyone knows where he might be able to find research and/or first-person accounts describing personal experience with learning secondary languages, specifically college-level, and what effect -- if any -- has Adderall had on your ability to do so.

SWIM is assuming that Adderall has a positive effect on language acquistion skills when administered daily at prescription-level doses, greatly improving levels of interest and enthusiasm, as well as confidence levels, making the monumental challenge of picking up another language during adulthood far easier and significantly more fulfilling. SWIM must emphasize, however, that this is merely an assumption. A cursory Google search did not reveal anything at all published by the scientific community that would back this up. Then again, SWIM is somewhat computer illiterate, even when it comes to google.

Anyways, SWIM would love to hear about anyone whose attempts to learn other languages have been affected by Adderall, as well as a few links or references to scientific research -- if any -- that has been done in the area of language learning and Amphetamines. Thank you.

Excuse me, I know this is like my fourth post and I know I'm being obnoxious tonight.

I was just curious though, is posting a thread on a forum asking questions about the effects of a drug that "could" be legally prescribed to you against the law?

No, it's not. So why would you use SWIM constantly over and over? It's make everyone sound like a group of robots.

I laugh at this one idea I had a day or so ago when thinking about this subject. I wonder how many people get up out the computer chair and say "Hey honey, do you know where SWIM's wallet is?"

Hahaha.. I guarantee you it happens.

Sorry, no offense no offense, right Amanda joy? *wink wink*

Okay fellas, I'm off to see a man about a horse..

Goodbye SWIYS!

( haha, as in "good bye guys." hahahaha.. sorry, so sorry.. )

[ISeeShadowPeople]

I lied. I did come back, but only because I re-read my post and realized that I said something wrong. So as to whether or not Adderall has a positive effect on learning a second language I have no idea.

However, I do now know that Adderall has a good effect on giving me ( SWIM ) the ability to quickly realize I made a mistake in a post I made a second ago. Adderall also helped me realize that I'm flooding a thread up with posts that have nothing at all to do with the topic.

Not only that, but besides giving me the ability to realize this and that, I'm damn near positive that it also seems to be the cause, or atleast my excuse, as to why I'm still here typing out paragraph after paragraph filled to the top with very very very bad grammar.

I would like to take this chance to apologize for flooding a topic with stupid gibberish. I also need to apologize again, because the stupid gibberish isn't over quite yet. I have one more thing to say...... then I'll say the original thing that I was meaning to say when I created this topic. Believe me, if I knew i was going to get locked into a amphetamine induced writing OCD psycosis - I would have waited til tommorrow..

Let me also apologize for beginning a paragraph talking about one topic and simply changing the topic in mid-sentence with no warning at all. No offense, no offense right Amanda boy?

Anyways..

All I wanted to say is that I understand I just created a post that's about six paragraphs deep of well... pointless bullsh-t. But the important thing is that you pay attention to the one hundred percent unique way that I did all this and give me atleast some credit for the "creative swagger" I carry when it comes to writing down words. It took many words to fill the sentences that created the past four or five paragraphs of a jabbering fool geeked out on ADD medicine. But just know that the reality of it all is, you're the one who is the fool..

Haha!

You've all been tricked by my number one skill I have, manipulation. Anyone can write six paragraphs that clearly have no point or meaning at all to anything anywhere. But it takes talent to make that nonsense seem entertaining and/or interesting enough for you to keep reading.. So don't be mad, sit back and laugh because you've been fooled by a genius.

A genius that made you read lord knows how many paragraphs just to get you to the end of my post where finally, after all this wasted time, ISeeShadowPeople has decided to say something that has a point to it...






My point is...

I don't know shit about whether adderall can help you learn Spanish. But I do know that it can make a person go to a message forum and hit the "reply" button so he can begin typing his paragraph with a point. ( I honestly had a REAL when I started the post ) But thanks to around two and a half days with no sleep and 350 to 400 mgs of ADD medicine, "You wasn't talking about anything close to being criminal in any shape or form, so why would you use SWIM over and over." paragraph that he wanted to add turned into ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL this.

Stick to the 60 mgs Amanda babe, because if you don't you're going to end up like me.. a weird login name high on speed acting all "wacko."

Thanks again and I apologize for tricking you into reading all of that. A smarter man would have seen that coming, but instead it was the smarter man who made it possible to consider.

Good-bye SWIY's!

[enquirewithin]

^The problem with using amphetamine for studying is that you can tend to write a lot of irrelevant stuff if you are not careful!

Originally Posted by Bajeda

Better than adderall

Thanks for that link. Far fewer side effects than Adderall!

[Lehendakari]

^^ The best way to learn another language is to speak to people who speak that language. For me, the biggest problem was that I was too shy and couldn't stand people not understanding me, so the best drug for SWIM was alcohol. He could speak fluently while drunk just cause his inhibitions were loosen

[ISeeShadowPeople]

My first post was 4:33 a.m.


My reply was 5:27 a.m.

I hit the reply button as soon as the first post was posted. It took me atleast 40 minutes to type those little paragraphs. The reasoning behind this, is when I posted this, I was in a full blown superman mode.

You've all been tricked by my number one skill I have, manipulation. Anyone can write six paragraphs that clearly have no point or meaning at all to anything anywhere. But it takes talent to make that nonsense seem entertaining and/or interesting enough for you to keep reading.. So don't be mad, sit back and laugh because you've been fooled by a genius

Haha, I remember feeling so so damn cool when I wrote this paragraph. Now that I sit back and look at the gibberish, I really did think I was writing some remarkable and "tricky." when I posted that yesterday ( Well, waaaaay earlier today for me since I haven't slept. )

I've been locked into a writing zone this entire four days. Writing stories, and letters, and.. oh god, I spent six hours writing a letter to my ex-girlfriend.. sometime during then she called me and made me mad, so I immedietely decided to change it into a hate letter..

Guess what I came out with?

Six hours spent writing gibberish, and I ended up with 7 pages filled with out of order paragraphs and a mixture of "I love you" sentences mixed in with "You stupid cunt" sentences. So basically, I have nothing.. Can't wait to read it tommorrow..

By now, whenever I try to write all i get is a bunch of nothing.. Plus I keep re-reading paragraphs and changing one word each time, or moving one sentence infront of the other, I will sometimes spend 20 minutes re-arranging a paragraph until it seems perfect..

wild times during my party with adderall these four days.. lots of ignorant posts, that's for sure.. no more left tho, so now it's valiums and some much needed rest.


final adderall binge thought..

wow.. 80 hours fly by in five minutes, amazing huh?