Question:
Does anyone have any experience, or pointers, about using NLP techniques to
learn a foreign language (Italian)?
Answer:
I've got my head/tongue around six including my own English and Italian, all
before I came to NLP. Having been the subject of a modeling exercise on the
subject of language learning since then, some of the things that emerged
were:
- Belief: we are all hard-wired to learn language (Chomsky et al.).
Language-learning isn't a gift, it's everyone's birthright. You are a
linguist.
- Listen to the language as much as possible in whatever forms please you
most - songs are great, you learn the words and the music
- Sensory acuity: practice hearing sounds and making finer distinctions as
you listen - birdsong, musical instruments, different cars and motorbikes,
whatever.
- Let the words come in and let the meaning reveal itself. Enjoy not
understanding and prepare to be surprised as your language centres start
putting things together.
- Be aware that grammar is just a useful generalisation about the way a
language works - it's a map that offers shotcuts to understanding the
landmark of the territory, it's not the territory itself.
- Sooner or later, you'll begin spotting patterns and intuitively working
out the grammar for yourself.
- Be aware that you'll latch on to certain words from the language - let
them bounce around your head, roll them round your mouth, check them out in
the dictionary.
- Great suggestion to learn some common verbs in the present tense - come,
go, live, write, drink, know, laugh,
- The purpose of language is to communicate - so use whatever you've got and
people will appreciate it and help you learn more
- The more you try out what you learn (with sensory acuity) the more fun and
feedback you'll have
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