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At present, it is largely unclear how the human brain optimally learns foreign languages. We investigated teaching strategies that utilize complementary information ("enrichment"), such as pictures [1] or gestures [2], to optimize vocabulary learning outcome. We found that learning while performing gestures was more efficient than the common practice of learning with pictures and that both enrichment strategies were better than learning without enrichment ("verbal learning"). We tested the prediction of an influential cognitive neuroscience theory that provides explanations for the beneficial behavioral effects of enrichment: the "multisensory learning theory" [3, 4] attributes the benefits of enrichment to recruitment of brain areas specialized in processing the enrichment. To test this prediction, we asked participants to translate auditorily presented foreign words during fMRI. Multivariate pattern classification allowed us to …