here I am talking to John Grinder
and the first topic today is gonna be on language acquisition
John speaks 8 languages I believe
I speak conversational level 8 languages
and I am very close to my 9th, I'm working on japanese
well done, some japanese
so, 8 languages, close to 9
some of the questions we are gonna be asking today
is regarding to John's ability to acquire languages
in the way he has done
and how about it's actually transferable as a skill
particularly used in NLP modeling so other people can
learn from you, John and from our team
and Carmen
how we can acquire languages fluently
that are we gonna call it first fluency
but just to start off with the first question is
what is the secret? 8 languages...
practice
just put into practice...
like any sport or exercise
in this case the neurology
there are shortcuts, there are accelerated strategies
so there's ways to make the whole thing happen significantly faster
but deep underneath is a commintment
xxxx
so for when I was about 8 years of age
proximately to the age of 16
I sat through French classes in school
and we where through verb structures and tense structures and now...
notice all metalanguage
you didn't do that in French
you talk about French in English and didn't do
you didn't speak French
you talked about the structure in French
indeed
so I felt myself in France
(laughs)
good luck
stuck
having spent all these years loving french
obviously when we are young we acquire a language rapidly...
I will contest that but just let it pass for the moment
slightly faster that my French experince
certainly
so, what do you say it's the difference between the way you have learned a language
and perhaps the orthodox style of teaching formerly in the education system
oh well, let me come and direct on that
somebody's done
a very good design
the only way and the only experience in the world I ever witness
including my own experience with French in High School
with the similar result when I got to Paris
the only way that we could be exposed to as much foreign language
as we're typically exposed to in High School and University
and not learn is the way it is taught
this really cycles back to the question about
kids are the best learners including the languages
now, there's a trick
what is it about children make things so superb
at the some rapid assimilation in a complex pattern you put in language
first of all, notice just in passing that
you can extremely well educated well prepared
researchers in linguistics for example
have spent hundreds of years
attempting to describe the structure
phonology, syntax or semantics
so different natural languages
and thus far it's been a completely failure
but it's not even a coherent sub-set
of any natural language which has been successfully described
yet, anybody with the testible IQ rougly 50 or above
according to this strange rituals called IQ tests
will in a relatively short period of time, a couple of years
acquire full fluency in a language which they have been embedded in
contextual
Chomsky has made a great exploitation
of this simple observation and concludes from it
something which I think has an interesting value to consider
that we're wired, this is not a blank state
slate that arrives you know in form of this willing little child
this infant but a pre-programmed organism
use who has built-in filters
and sophisticated inductive processes
for finding pattern, pattern recognition
circuitry
which makes them particularly alert to
responsive to and confident
in the acquisition these complex things called natural language
so, if we buy for a moment this particular way of thinking about it
is the easiest way to describe the strategy
what ive applied in acquiring in what I have aquired
is to become a child again
now in the more formal language
technical language in NLP this is the ability to
select and sustain what we call the know nothing state
this know nothing state appears in our work
in NLP both historically and through up until the present
as the ability to set aside when you choose on demand
the knowledge base such
characterized as the neurologically registered maps
internal maps which are our best guess
in making sense about cumulative experiences over decades and decades
if we can learn to set that aside
we remove one of the two differences between a child and an adult
so a current language systems
yes, so if among all of the knowledge based
we set aside its access
to our made up language or any language where you achieve fluency
and we removed a source of the necessity to compare
and to make congruent the incoming data screen
from French, from Thai, from Tibetan, from kiswahili
with the auditory register map called
in our case American and British English
a child in part is a superior learner simply because they don'y have to make that comparison
with material already assimilated and put into patterns
so, by achieving this strange and quite...
how shall I say?
quite entertaining state of unconscious confidency
in which unconscious assimilation or pattering can occur
without any attempts to make sense of it to understand it
and certainly with no requirement for comparing
the input that screen for the pattering
with patterns we already have registered in our data base
this comes in a really strong form of course
in language learning
you asked me and I gave you a response, you know
how is it that people don't learn languages given the academic process offer it
and i've already made my comment about it, one specific way
in which that's true of course is
just if I'm like a good artist
you mention French, I also had several years of French
from a teacher who didn't speak French
so we spent a lot of time with the middle level talking about the structure of French
and then memorizing certain dialogues
his..turns out his phonology was completely flawed
so much so that I had
what is very typical experience when I first arrived in France
in particular Paris where I tried out my best attempts from these two years
I studied French to communicate and the consistent response was: "pardon?"
and its not...
the French have styles
one of the things I find really attractive about the french
they even have styles I don't find attractive
but the fact that they have the freedom
it's almost like a birthrite as far as I can tell for the French
that you have the choice of developing your style
and people are quite...
tolerant is too strong word
quite accepting accepting this individual variations
it's as if everyone has a right to choose style whether it's attractive
or not, it's an evaluative proposition
but the right is there, so you find quite accepting of this
at the same time of all the languages I had any experience in
French has the tightest phonological targets
you hit those vowels or you miss them
and if you miss them it just doesn't work
this is what would come from textbook learning
that learning comes from
the experience of native French speakers
...of being immersed in the flow of French by a native French
so, a moment ago you mention know nothing states
and there may be people watching this
perhaps even trained in NLP may not be familiar with the know nothing state
from the new Code NLP perspective could you please offer a description?
well better yet I'll just gave three places you know to get them
number 1: if you work with
a coach or anyone who has calibration skills
has to... the physiology and the state which it reflects
you can take the various games and activities of new code
and run them as anybody who's done this
kind to test the access state
the state that you access from these games
it's something quite close to the know nothing state
it's typical that there's not internal dialog
it's typical that there's very little labelling linguistically
it's typical that there's no strong movements
to achieve undertanding
the experience itself has a richness and texture to it
and the states tend to be of course elicited
enhanced performances about high performance states
and typical of those although they are classes or exceptions for example xxx
typical of those high performance or enhanced performance states
there's no need for conscious segmentation
and ongoing from the experience itself
is the thing which we engage
is this a thing you sort of recommend now
for people who would be learning languages
access to these states of know nothingness
through high performance New Code games
so, one source is the accessed states coming out of this well done
well calibrated by a third party
experiences in the New Code games and activities
there are other places to go
go find yourself, borrow a nice 18 month
to 21 month old baby
who has a few "googoo" words at best
and get down on your knees, get down on the floor
with this baby and do direct or lateralize mirroring
for the next 10 minutes if you can last that long
babies are in constant motion
babies don't have internal dialog
babies do not have well developed maps of the world
in the strong sense the we adults do
no one have to code the descriptions of their environment
no one will have to code the descriptions of their environent
although there's a little caveat here
as you know my daughter and her husband
have created there's several versions of this in the world now
they themselves have created DVD's
which teach infants starting between 7 and 8 months
how to sign for example...
there's a lot of iconicity in American sign
so, this sign if you look at it
describes a part of an animal namely the whiskers of a cat
in fact this part of the cat now through the...
becoming icon
now becomes in its stylized form the sign for it the animal itself
the entire cat
it's quite remarkable to have an exchange...
the family cat walks by
and anybody is been around an infant know
they are totally engaged by animals
they recognize the diffence between toys and animals
and as the cat walks by the baby becomes excited and focused
and then turns to an adult
and if they have been afforded the oppurtunity to develop sign
they will then sign what it is what they see and register
so this is the naming function
this is the most fundamental piece of language
natural language anyway
but then they will look at you and if you are in the game
then of course you can repeat
and the communication is quite complete
before 14 months, Jessica, my grand daughter for example
had I would say a hundred signs
so she began very quickly
then to make the next step in language acquisition
which is string in together of tokens
in this case signs and in the spoken language words
in different orders
predominantly nouns
predominantly nouns?
no...pronouns and verbs
it' s a nice mix
anyway, that's in the side about
a presupposition I think we have since the beginning of time
about babies, they're cute
they make messes, they make funny sounds
and faces and they are constantly smiling if they catch your eye
but the idea that they are capable let's say at 7 or 8 months
of organizing themselves to comment on their internal states
thirsty, hungry
or an external event like the cat walking by
this method is been put to rest by maybe some