i f i or some body would like to learn a foreign langauge, how can you improve the quickness of the skill with NLP??

Hello Ben
Given that NLP is about modeling excellence then it's a good idea to find people who speak other languages really well and elicit their strategies for doing it. Not being a great linguist myself I would love to hear from other people who are! (heres an opportunity Gabe so we can figure out how they do it.
When I want to get by in another language I use Michelle Thomas's Cds. After a few hours I can at least shop, buy food and be polite - big bonus - its easy!
I met a guy on a plane a few years ago who spoke 27 different languages. I asked him how he did it. He started with a K! He said he felt himself into that country and got the feeling of being french german japanese etc. When he had the feeling the sounds and language patterns followed - how cool is that!
K

Hi!

Interesting.

I only speak three languages -- English (my mother tongue), German, and French, but I'm planning to learn several more...Icelandic and Old Norse, Danish, Russian for starters. Possibly Norwegian, Swedish, or both.

I can see how your friend did it...start with K, then go from there. You get the feel of the language -- each language has its own feel. Russian, for instance, feels deep and...sad. Passionate.

German feels tense and precise...to me, that is.

What I've noticed is that when I switch languages, I move into an entirely different mode. It's as if each language resides in a separate compartment in my brain, and when I switch from German to french, for example, there's a huge shift.

My entire body language changes. as well. The pitch of my voice also changes...when speaking French, women's voices tend to sound a bit higher. I feel that to speak another language well you have to be willing to step into a different cultural reality, at least temporarily.

I'd recommend 1) Barry Farber's How to learn any language as a great orientation and 2) photoreading foreign language texts.

- Valeria

Pimsleur's is a good method, there are lots of criteria to speaking a language, especially a language like Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamesewere there is a massive gap between how to 'speak' it and read/write it.

There are ways, obviously to increase the chances of learning any language, so for me it's about immersion. Language is only words and not the cultural values so you have to observe them too, so prioritize, organize and learn.

That's how I do it and I'm just learning my fourth language, mandarin Chinese. They use flashcards in mandarin, also for native speakers when young, they should be a great aid to anyone. You can easily flip through them and remember them quickly, then you need to use what you've learnt and progress and progress.

As I said there are lots of things to consider, for example whenever my Chinese friends hear my tapes they laugh, or get annoyed, and say that's not really spoken language, but then I get my own back 'cos often they have learnt 'modern English' which is just americanised, at least the majority of them will talk with more of an american accent.

I am a big fan of Pimsleur too. Perfect for learning in the car because they are almost completely audio. Just one small booklet to read.

I discovered one NLP technique that really helps me.

Eric Robbie demonstrated how to improve your sensory acuity by moving your center of consciousness around your body..

I wondered if I could use the same technique to remove my block to learning languages and it worked brilliantly. I used to stumble over remembering whilst listening to pimsleur and wondered if it was because my voice was coming from the same place that was forming the words and listening to the tapes.

I moved my center of consciousness into my chest and then the block disappeared. I felt under less pressure and was able to give attention to pronunciation rather than just remembering the words.

This is an interesting thread. I went to a conference earlier this year and the whole thing was in German, which I don't speak. I had a translator whispering in one ear the English translation and in the other ear I had the German coming in from the stage. By the end of the conference, I really had a good feel for the language and could understand a good deal more than when I arrived. So I have been wondering about learning in trance - maybe a double induction?
I once met a woman whose English was so perfect I couldn't believe it was a second language for her. I asked her how she did it and she said she learnt the tones and tunes before the words. That would follow - that is how we learn to talk in the first place!
By the way, I once had dinner with Michelle Thomas - who won the prize for the most boring company ever! Strange as I would have expected him to be really interesting! Maybe that says something about me? Oh dear!

oh ps - I have been replying to a thread about foreign languages. but now i notice this is about foregin languages. what does foregin mean anyway? don't answer this post - its just i like to get my spells right

During my prac training two different people asked -- one of Paul McKenna, the other of Richard Bandler -- how they could use NLP to help them learn another language. Both answered that nothing they knew could beat Michel Thomas' method, so they recommended using that. Sounds like a pretty good recommendation to me.

I used Michel Thomas a couple of years ago to brush up on my French. Having got used to the method, I found it a great start on Spanish too.

I've listened to some Pimsleur and found it, I though useful. That is, until I heard the first lesson on their Irish language set (I'm sure it is an enormous seller for them). Unfortunately I would have to report that it is pretty poor - it sounds like nothing I had ever heard before (after 14 years of compulsory learning, I can speak enough of it to get by in those few enclaves where it is still spoken).

I've often thought about whether I could model Michel Thomas to teach my children the language. Maybe it is something I will revisit now.


Cheers,


Stephen

Stephen,

Sadly, Michel Thomas is no longer with us. But Wyatt Woodsmall spent a fair amount of time with him in his last two years. Wyatt, who has quite some experience in modelling, presents some of his observations and findings when he teaches these days, and there may be a book from him about Thomas some time soon.

In the meantime, you, or anyone else, are welcome to "reverse engineer" the approach, based on, and starting from, any of the language CDs. If you are going to work on how small children 'learn' language, I'd recommend the work another great explorer and teacher, also no longer with us, Roger Brown.

Laura,

You're much closer to one of the secrets of language than conventional nlp 'wisdom' has it - it being still stuck in that old, 1965-78 idea of Deep Structure-vs-Surface Structure thing, with only the Surface Structure going to the "phonological component" in the brain and mind. The more modern thinking in lingustics has only one level of structure, one which simultaneously "interfaces" with both the phonological component and the semantic component - and, says Ray Jackendoff (for example, in Foundations of Language, 2002), the phonological structure is just as important as the semantic structure is - to the mind.

In other words, the music of the words is part of the meaning too. As your own work so amply demonstrates.

Eric.

cool and thank you eric. i haven't read the book but I have watched my children learn. they are great teachers. but tell me about the Roger Brown book - sounds like something I might be interested in.

I have found that getting into the rythym and sounds of a language make the language more enjoyable. and immersion makes it easier too.

In school, we learnt French from a robot called 'pmf', which sounded like a french speaking dalek, and wasn't that useful.

But when we listened to french music,watched french films (cyrano de bergerac being a classic), and made jokes in french, the language came alive.

Paying attention to natural speech is also useful. When I did my trainer training in orlando, i really enjoyed mixing with the italians, and after a while, my italian had really picked up.

Absolutely! The more you 'get inside' a language by immersing yourself in its unique structure and rhythms, and entering to whatever extent possible the culture/mindset of the speakers, the more natural it becomes to speak it.

And you have to be comfortable with making mistakes and sounding different from your usual mode of speech. I think the fear of looking or sounding like an idiot keeps many, many adults stuck in the idea that they 'can't' learn another language, or has them learning the words without the pronunciation.

OK on this topic I've a challenge.

My husband is great at boxing and martial arts. He just sees a move and can replicate it. Bettering it by already anticipating the other's consequent reaction. So can counter. It becomes part of him. He says he's a sponge for body mechanics.

Anyway ... He's trying to learn spanish. I put two words and their meaning on the wall in the kitchen. I ask him every so often what is xy or yx. Get's it wrong.
I said, can you see the word on the wall. In his minds eye, he says he can see the two pieces of paper, he can see how they're placed, the width of the gap between them, the colour of the wall, paper so on. But not the words. OK .. so this method is not for him.

But ... if I can harness his 'sponge' talents of reading (and retaining as part of himself) body movements. What elements do you think could be transferred out of this into learning languages. Do you follow? Like we know in what situation he learns really well, what can we take from that and use for 'him' in learning languages.

A challenge!
I think interesting tho'. As if we can find out what someones good at, but transfer skills - it may help in the learning of lots of other things.

that is interesting. If you have ever watched Katherine LaValle teach you will have seen her use kinaesthetics to help people learn. You could try getting your husband to find a body posture for each word. Ask him what the word 'feels' like to him and get him to embody the word in his stance. Its worth a try - he might then have a way to remember the words that is within his default learning strategy. Let me know if that works!

Well .. that is interesting! I'll have a go at thinking how to execute that. Thanks.