Ha ha. You gave away the joke too soon with Avril La Blague.
A new species of fish discovered in the Amazon by French botanist Avril La Blague can help adults acquire second language skills as easily as young children – and acquire other skills such as perfect pitch, previously considered innate.
The fish – named after its founder, “Poisson d’Avril” – contains high concentrations of Valproic acid, a key ingredient in drugs used to treat epilepsy. Research into the drug had been conducted independently by Takao Hensch, a professor of molecular and cellular biology at Harvard University, who discovered that it could be used to teach perfect pitch to adults.
“Apistogramma nijsseni” or Poisson d’Avril can help adults learn French as fast as children (source)
"It’s a mood-stabilizing drug," Hensch explained, "but we found that it also restores the plasticity of the brain to a juvenile state."
Dr La Blague independently discovered the same phenomenon when she investigated claims about several indigenous Brazilian tribes with remarkable linguistic skills. She discovered more than a dozen nomadic tribes, each with their own native tongue, were fluent in all twelve of the other tribes’ languages, despite having only brief contact with them each year. Tribe members ate the fish as part of "magic" rituals, in which the gods were asked to bestow upon them the gift of many tongues. When La Blague had the fish analysed, several unusual nutritional properties were found, including Valproic acid.
The Poisson d’Avril is still being researched but La Blague has already won €2.3m government investment to set up breeding farms in France and the fish may be sold in Europe as early as next year.
Author info
[Follow on Twitter: @gruffdavies] Despite the very Welsh name, Gruff is actually half French. Nowadays, he's a tech entrepreneur (and some-time novelist) but he used to be a physicist at Imperial College before getting hooked on inventing things. He has a special interest in language learning, speaks five languages to varying degrees of fluency and he often blogs about language learning, science, and technology. As well as co-founding Kwiziq, he is the author the Amazon best-selling SF thriller, The Looking Glass Club and the inventor of the Exertris gaming exercise-bike and Pidgin, a free online tool that makes drawing flow charts and relationship diagrams as quick and easy as describing them in pidgin English.
Comments: 5
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Too bad, it would be so great! Just it a fish and you speak french what a great idea ;-)
Here's the real surprise: yes it was an April Fool post, but I wasn't entirely making it up... https://www.french-test.com/blog/can-miracle-pill-help-you-learn-french-faster/