Cracking Thai Fundamentals Video Clips - Stuart Jay Raj’s Thai Vowel Hand-signs

I’m happy to announce the birth of my newly sprouted home video studio here in Bangkok. To take it for a test ride, I have just posted a 2 episode series covering the core Thai vowels.

Video Clips

About 10 years ago, as part of my Cracking Thai Fundamentals workshop, I developed a series of handsigns that I felt really aided learners of Thai understand the concepts of the Thai vowels, remember their shapes and link them in with the sounds of the vowels themselves.

Over the coming weeks, along with the new logo and branding that you can see in the clips, I will be giving my blog and www.kogneit.com website a facelift. At the moment I’m tossing up between Drupal and Joomla possibilities. The end result will be a portal where all the programmes and topics that I cover – from languages – Thai, Chinese, Indonesian, Spanish, Hindi, Sanskrit, Burmese and any other one I can think of, to mind skills – memory techniques, speed reading, thought decoupling and other topics that come under the heading of my Mnidcraft Programme.

I will have video clips, articles, books and forums about all these topics with the goal of really harnessing the energy of all of you out there who have supported me over the past couple of years, to see if we can start to break new ground in language learning and general usage of our grey matter.

As clips go up – even if they’re covering topics or languages that you haven’t previously been interested in, give them ago. You might tap into something new that will take your life on an entirely new path.

Please send any ideas for clips and articles to me at stujay@hotmail.com. I’ll try as best as I can to deliver!

Enjoy 

Stuart Jay Raj.

Mnidcraft Workshop This Sat 21-Sun 22 Feb 2009 @ Bangkok

I've just arrived home from traversing the back-alleys of Bangkok stocking up on abacuses, Rubik's cubes and other goodies. I've also been recording new songs, grooves and other funky tunes that we'll be using in this weekend's Mnidcraft workshop. If you're in Bangkok - or you're looking for a good excuse to be in Bangkok this weekend, drop me a line! The venue is beautiful, though has limited seating. I've included the information below. If you think you can attend, drop me an email - stujay@hotmail.com to confirm your spot.

So far, I have people flying in from China, Hong Kong, Japan, as well as a whole bunch of fascinating people that live here in the Kingdom.

If there is enough demand, I might look at running another 2-day workshop the following week.

Look forward to seeing you all there.

Stu.

Mnidcraft by Stuart Jay Raj An Operating System for Your Mind It's time to invest in something that they can't take away from you! No – the spelling is no mistake! – The fact that your brain recognizes the word even though it isn’t spelled the traditional way is testament to what is at the heart of this programme. Duration: 2 days Dates: Sat 21st and Sun 22nd Feb Time: 08:30 – 17:00 each day Location: Fraser Suites – Sukhumvit Soi 11 Contact: stujay@hotmail.com URL: http://stujay.blogspot.com Have you ever wanted to master another language?

Fluent in over 15 languages and having a solid grounding in over 30, polyglot Stuart Jay Raj has delved into what makes him ‘him’ and from his findings has put together his ‘Mnidcraft – The Art of Language’ series. View Clip - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNlNhBGROQI

Mnidcraft empowers anyone with a will to succeed to develop the same aptitude for languages and communication as what Stuart Jay Raj possesses based on powerful NLP modeling principles.

NLP Modeling

NLP modeling is the practice of isolating essential patterns that makes someone successful and duplicating them into others in a way that they are practiced unconsciously. Stuart has carefully designed activities where you will not only learn the secrets that have crafted his aptitude for language, but will also have these skills, habits and knowledge embedded within you, breathing new life into your relationship with language!

More than just the ability to learn languages

Developing an aptitude for language is actually just a side effect of the Mnidcraft series. You will also tap into new abilities:

• Learn techniques to learn and develop native-like fluency in Thai, Chinese, English, Hindi, Arabic, Spanish and other languages • Super Memory • Perfect Pitch • Touch-type in multiple languages including Thai, Sanskrit and Korean • Be ‘funny’ across cultures • Increase self-esteem in yourself and others • Mimic sounds, body language and mannerisms • Build instant rapport with people you’ve just met • Master tones in Tonal Languages including Thai, Chinese and Vietnamese • Solve the Rubik’s Cube through muscle memory • Use an Abacus • Circular Breathing • Learn Morse Code / Sign Language alphabets Simultaneously • Speed Reading • Simultaneous Interpreting • XML and programming fundamentals

Getting Yourself Prepared

To prepare your mind for the workshop, I highly recommend taking a stroll through my blog:

http://stujay.blogspot.com And few several of the video clips available on the side-bar. In particular, the Mnidcraft preview and the Morse / Sign Language ABC clip.

Stuart Jay Raj. stujay@hotmail.com http://stujay.blogspot.com

Those iPhone Developers Might be the Funkiest, Schwaginist Geeks in Cupertino, but they Sure Ain’t No Linguists!

Dear gods of the cyberverse, please direct this blog-entry through the right routers,feed aggregators, RSS readers … anything it takes so that those great apple developers in the sky can start to get a taste of the multilingual HUMAN world outside of that apparently monoglot paradise of Cupertino.

I've had my iPhone for almost a year now. Someone actually gave me a 3G version, but I was so attached to my original phone that I sold the 3G version and kept the old one. You see apart from liking the metallic feel of it – something that you just can't find with handheld appliances these days, mine has a huge crack across the screen that I've grown rather fond of. (The crack happened when running to escape the Bangkok rain in mid 2008 – when the device slipped out of the slip-proof iPhone belt-holster that I'd purchased a few days earlier).

Why a Polyglot / linguaphile SHOULD own an iPhone

As we learned in Dale Carnegie Instructor training, when delivering bad news, START WITH THE POSITIVE AS A BUFFER! So here goes.

The first week I had my iPhone I wanted to throw the thing out the window. I'm a tinkerer – and not being an Apple person, I found the iPhone not really tinkerer friendly. Luckily within a few days I was lucky to find a team of enthusiastic iPhone hackers that whetted my palate with the possibilities that the iPhone holds for tinkerers. From that moment on, I started to take to the thing.

Podcasts, Language MP3's, Youtube and more

I quickly found many uses for it – it's actually changed my life. From ChinesePod.com to Japanesepod101.com to news podcasts in different languages to morse simulators to Youtube clips, the iPhone is a language learners dream! If you want to know someone, take a look at their iTunes library. I have MP3's and streams in over 40 languages in my iTunes that I sync with my phone which facilitates my learning every waking moment (that I'm not with clients of course … well, even then some)

Now with AV cables, I don't even have to take my computer to many events that I have to speak at / teach at. I can play the Audio / Video files straight out of my iPhone through the sound system / LCD of the seminar venue – and even record Presentations as video files and then use my iPhone as the presentation device rather than PowerPoint.

There are also some great apps out there that developers are creating for learning languages - one that I particularly like is JapaneseFlip (日本語フリップ) by Andre Khromov. Very simple but good looking App that helps you get through your JLPT levels.

3 Steps to Drive a Polyglot to go Insane and Throw their Freaking iPhone off a Cliff!

I can imagine what the project management meetings in the development process were like:

Project Manager: "Now guys, there are gonna be some folks out there that don't speak 'Merican, so we might have to have some way they can talk to each other in their own gobbledygook"

Development Team Underling: "Ahh… yes boss, I'll get on it. Those Chinese folks down on the corner at the restaurant seem nice, maybe they'll be able to help me get some of their lingo into this thing."

Project Manager: "Great idea! Just make sure you don't make it too easy for 'em. We don't wanna encourage too much of 'their language'… in the long run, better to have 'em speaking 'Merican like the rest of the world! We have those great 'Merican language modules that we use in our Mac OS's … just throw one of those under the hood and it should do the trick"

Development Team Underling: "Umm .. boss… what about people who want to communicate in more than one language at once?"

Project Manager: "Yeah right!" (sarcastically)

Development Team Underling: "Okie Dokie boss – consider it done!"

And so the iPhone language development team was born.

3 Areas of iPhone Linguistic Insanity

1. Language Input
2. Predictive Text
3. Fonts

Language Input

Well, I have to hand it to the team. For the first models, there was only a handful of roman scripted languages that were catered for. Later firmware versions introduced more languages. I wish these US developers would realise that even in the US, you will have people using their devices who speak a whole array of languages. You don't need to release a phone in Thailand, Japan or China to warrant having Thai and Japanese input options. Give the options on installation / updating of the firmware as to what languages should be included – that way you don't eat up memory with unnecessary stuff and everyone is happy.

The way you switch languages is really cumbersome too! In a typical message sent out of my phone, I could have any combination of Thai, Chinese, Japanese, English, Indonesian, Spanish and Nordic languages being used. I just had a look through some of my SMS's and some of them use up to 4 languages in a given message.

Could I suggest a language selection button that will iterate if tapped normally through the input language list similar to the buttons that already open up to display additional characters when held. Rather than a straight tab of letters though, if held it would open up something like a daisy-wheel so you can slide your finger directly to the target language selection – when you release your finger, it's in that language input mode.

That way, if there are only 2 input keyboards running, you can do 1-tap iteration, otherwise people with more than 2 keyboards can also quickly switch between them without iterating through ALL OF THEM … often resulting in the thing hanging and then crashing. At the moment I have 8 keyboards active. So if I change to a language and back to English, a minimum of 9 clicks is needed. Not only that, because you're typing as fast as you can, you often get 'click happy' and iterate past the English keyboard and have to go through them all again. It's a bit 'Ground hog day'ish' guys!

Input Keyboard Layout

I understand that screen real-estate is scarce, but some of the excuses I've seen for Thai keyboards are appalling. Given, I don't think that most of the ones that I've been using have been developed by Apple themselves – most of them 3^rd party apps from Eastern Europe, the developers were probably just concerned about getting so many letters into such a small space and knew nothing about typing habits of native speakers of those languages, common letters vs. uncommon letters etc.

Predictive Text

With the original firmware, there was a function in there that allowed you to turn the predictive text off. Since version 2.0, I'll be darned if I can find it anymore!??

Even for monoglots of English, people don't communicate in standard English. There have been papers after papers on the language of messaging, sms language, email English etc.

Here's an example in English:

Desired text:

Ud bttr c if ur gf's up to it, coz ur gona get it otherwise.

If I type that into my iPhone without going back each time and correcting it here's the result:

I'd byte CID ye FFA up to it, cox HR Bina get it otherwise

The funny thing… each time I tried to backspace and fix things up, things progressively changed and got worse (even more changes to what you see above!)

I don't know what these guys could have been thinking. We don't send text messages to be grammatically correct! We send them for efficiency. Not only that, the shorthand used communicates a multitude of emotions, relationships and other 'meta meanings'.

Indonesian Texting

I think Indonesians would have to be right up there with the Filipinos as the number one texters on the planet! Someone could be driving down the freeway at 130kmh, swerving between the cars and still get out an epic text message in a few seconds flat.

As with many other languages, SMS language in Indonesia is a language of its own.

As a linguist, it's fascinating to analyse what's going on. Normal language takes on almost semitic language principles – where words retract into fundamental vowel deprived roots, then inflated with different amended affixes as needed.

Here's another call out to the developers…

INDONESIANS USE THE ROMAN ALPHABET TO TYPE BAHASA INDONESIA…. So there's no need to change a keyboard. The English keyboard would do just fine if there wasn't any freakin' predictive text there to botch it all up!

Not only do Indonesian's use the Roman alphabet, many of them can speak languages other than Indonesian!... so in a given message, you might have Bahasa Indonesia, Sundanese, Javanese, Mandarin, Hakka and English!

But let's get back to Indonesian SMS'ing. Here's a sample sentence:

SMS Bahasa Indonesia	Luh !... lg ngapain skrg? Skr aq lg ngopi2 ama tmn. Mo bareng2 ama kt gak?
SMS on iPhone after Predictive Text interferes	Lun ! of ngapain sir ? sir aa of NGO 2 AMA Tbk . Mo naren 2 AMA it Tak?
Colloquial Bahasa Indonesia (of original message)	Elu! Lagi ngapain sekarang? Sekarang aku lagi ngopi-ngopi sama teman. Mau bareng-bareng sama kita enggak?
Standard Bahasa Indonesia (of original message)	Hai! Sedang apa sekarang? Sekarang saya sedang duduk-duduk minum kopi dengan teman saya. Apakah anda ingin berjalan-jalan dengan kami?
English (with poetic license)	Hey dog! What'cha up to? I'm sitting here chillin' (over coffee) with a couple of friends. You wanna come out with us?

Thai and other languages

This applies to ALL languages. Sometimes depending on someone's phone and language upbringing, Thais might send a message in Thai – or write their version of Thai using the Roman alphabet. There is no standard to the spelling used, so developing a dictionary would be useless. Each person has their own 'flavour'.

It gets worse, the predictive text started to think it would be smart by 'learning' Thai letter order patterns. Well it thought it did… it applied 'English' logic to Thai and the results were terrible. Vowels and consonants were all swapped around to make the language look totally alien.

Other notes on Input Languages

The technology is out there guys… so how bout it…add a few languages into the iPhone official 'flock' – Arabic, Thai, Hindi / Devanagari, Tamil and other scripts that although they might be a little foreign to Cupertino, there are still billions of people outside of that 'hood' that use the languages.

Fonts

My last note is on Fonts.

On my Window's system, I love the MS Arial Unicode font – although it lacks some scripts like Burmese, Khmer, Tibeten and several others, it is fantastic in that the point size for Thai, Chinese, Arabic and Latin are all the same. I can even call a whole range of IPA characters up and they'll display on any page.

The iPhone's font mapping is bizarre with languages like Arabic. Arabic is a complex class script where the letters' forms will change depending on where they are in the word, with diacritics above and below the letters. For some reason, when reading pages on the web in Arabic / Urdu / Farsi etc, only the initial position letter forms are used. This again, makes the language look extremely bizarre. While it's possible to make out what the words are (kinda) it's very cumbersome and not in line with that slick 'Apple' image that I could imagine that you guys would be trying to shoot for.

APPLE EXECUTIVES TAKE NOTE

You are about to launch the iPhone here in Thailand legally. I'm not sure what you're doing in the way of your 'official' Thai input option, but if I were you, I'd seriously consider giving the Thai language issues an overhaul.

I'm happy to hire my consulting services out to you to make sure you don't piss the SE Asian texting community off any more than they already are.

Actually – I've changed my mind … hire me and we can sit down over a coffee in Cupertino and give the WHOLE FREAKIN' LANGUAGE thing an overhaul.

I've walked into Apple stores all over the world over the past couple of years and challenged the salespeople to convert me to a Mac user. I need a system that will allow me to use all the languages I use with ease – Microsoft actually got the whole predictive text thing right with Mandarin and Windows leaves Mac's OS in the dust when it comes to speed of typing up a Chinese document.

Both Apple and Windows do a dismal job in allowing us to type in Cantonese and other Chinese languages / dialects. I'm honestly surprised that one of the over a BILLION speakers of non-Mandarin Chinese languages hasn't mentioned it to you before.

CONVERT ME! MAKE ME A DISCIPLE! No one has been able to do it yet - and I still sit here with my PC - Linux and Windows.

Jazz Lessons on Language - Improvisation 101 - Stuart Jay Raj’s Indic Script Compass

Find Your Way Around Indic Based Writing Systems (Devanagari, Tamil, Panjabi (Gurmukhi), Burmese, Bahasa Bali (Balinese), Bahasa Jawa (Javanese), Thai and Khmer (Cambodian) Without a GPS

Download Full A3 Size Chart Here

Theme and Variation

The reason I love playing and listening to jazz so much is because you're able to get into the soul of the players by hearing how they improvise on a theme. Language is not that much different.

I've noticed what could be described as almost an unquestioning deific reverence and fear paid to the writing systems of Indic language systems by their users (and learners of them). Whether it's the Devanagari script used to write amongst other languages, Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi and Nepali, or the scripts of other languages in India and surrounding countries like Panjabi, Tamil, Telugu or as far down as Southeast Asia including Thai, Lao, Burmese, Khmer (Cambodian), Balinese orJavanese, when you start to scratch the surface of the origins, grammar or even just the reasoning of certain things that would seem strange to outsiders, the eyes of your average Joe who's spoken one of those languages since birth will tend to glaze over. (Now THAT was a long sentence!)

That's the Problem with Turtles… It really shouldn't be that way!

Those Indians were pretty cluey back in the day. They developed an alphabet thousands of years ago that was a virtual GPS for the human mouth!

Just like the theme and variation in Jazz, all the languages that I've mentioned above (and many more) have used this basic map as their base - a reference guide and then coloured it with the sound filters of their own respective languages.

To draw an analogy from English, take a common sentence that we use every day like:

'That's the problem with turtles'

This is the 'base' or 'theme'. A variation might have those same letters read as:

'Dat's da pwoblem wif toitles' …

For many, the whole concept that 'Dat's' had come from 'That's' was never explained, leaving not only learners, but also native speakers of the language in a haze as to 'why' certain things are about the language and just accepting that it's something beyond the comprehension of mere mortals.

Part of my Mnidcraft course is to get a good grounding in the principles of Indic based scripts and develop some level of proficiency in identifying several the scripts including Devanagari, Thai, Khmer and Burmese.

I developed my 'Indic Consonant Glyphs' and the 'Stuart Jay Raj's Indic Script Consonant Compass' as a tool to accelerate the acquisition / learning of scripts based on the Indic sound system themes and variations.

Don't Count The Letters!

I'll often hear people measuring the complexity of a language by the number of letters in its alphabet. This to me is absurd as the practice of judging a presentation's quality by its PowerPoint slide count! (Another pet hate of mine… which led me to designing my 'Present!' presentations workshop who's subtitle is 'Bringing Presentations Back to The Presenter').

It's this body count (or in this case consonants + vowel count) that has turned many a learner off from learning languages like Thai, Sanskrit, Khmer and Burmese.

What Language Would You Prefer to Learn?

Here's the blurb….

Wadafrackizet

Soowizy

Welcome to your first day of learning Wadafrackizet! Our language only has 18 letters in its alphabet, but they're used to write a total of 90 different sounds give or take a few. The order of the alphabet has no specific logic to it, nor do the shapes of the letters really mean anything. Not only that!... Wadafrackizet has an extremely comprehensive set of rules that you must follow. Well, the general rule of thumb is that you follow those rules with the exception of the times that you don't follow them – which happens quite often. The joy of learning Wadafrackizet is finding out just when those times are that the rules aren't applied by yourself.

Welcome to your first day of learning Soowizy! Soowizy's writing system follows an ingeniously simple line of logic that plots each letter in a systematic fashion to key points of the mouth, one syllable at a time. This way, you don't even really need to remember an 'alphabetical order' so to speak. Where the letter comes from in your mouth is where it lies in the alphabet. Not only that, many of the letters actually 'look' the way they 'sound'! The good news is that once you've learned this very simple system based on only 5 points of the mouth , you can tweak it here and there enabling you to learn over 50 other languages that work on the same operating system!

I don't know about you, but I don't think I'd be lining up to learn Wadafrackizet! (Ok, I admit it – I probably would)… but honestly, Soowizy sounds just so … EASY!

The Cardinal Points of the Mouth

As you read through the brief explanation to each of the following glyphs, place your tongue / mouth in the position and hold it there. Once you can do it for each glyph, move your gaze from one glyph to another at random and practice locking your mouth into the correct position according to the glyph that you're looking at.

Drilling yourself for about 2 minutes like this should be enough to start to develop some long lasting muscle memory.

Gutteral	Palatal	Cerebral	Dental	Labial
Back of the throat	Flattened Tongue on the Roof of the Mouth (Palate)	Rolled Back (Retroflex) Tongue on the Roof of the Mouth	Tongue on Teeth	Lips

대한민국! (Dae Han Min Kuk!)

Now, I know the Korean speakers out there must be thinking "Hmmm… some these symbols seem eerily familiar!".

Koreans are very proud of their writing system 'Han Geul' – 한 글 .. . and so they should be. Developed by King Sejong the Great (1418-1450) in 1444, it is one of the easiest scripts to learn on the planet! (I learned it on a bus ride across Seoul one sunny afternoon in 1996J ).

To add value to learning the Korean alphabet, I suggest spending an extra 10 minutes to learn how to touch type in Korean also. The keys are very logically set out between:

• Left hand: Consonants
• Right hand: Vowels

Each syllable in Han Geul is broken into a beginning (initial) sound, vowel and final sound component (if necessary). The symbols used to represent each of the sounds were based on the various parts of the mouth from which they were produced.

Korea Meets India

I have combined this principle with the basic principle of the Indic Scripts 'Map of the Mouth' logic to develop my own symbols.

It's interesting to note that the sound for 'r' / 'l' in Korean is uncannily similar to many of the symbols used to represent these same sounds in Indic (Brahmi) based scripts that display a 'rolling tongue' in one rendering or another. When I'm learning a new Indic script, this is actually one of the first memory points I will look for – I will peg the similarity or difference of its 'r' sound to the ones that I already know. I can't include all the samples in this text based medium as the fonts probably won't render properly on your computer. You can see them on the main 'Indic Consonant Compass' chart though.

Another shape that is very similar include the 'base voice' symbol which in many scripts is a circular shape of some sort.

The 'y' symbol which in Korean is normally 'two prongs' heading in the vowel direction. In the Indic scripts, the 'y' sound is usual a 2 or 3 pronged shape which I imagine is a representation of the way the tongue interacts with the palate.

Here is a sample:

Comparison of Similar Sound Shapes in Korean, Devanagari, Thai, Tamil and Gurmukhi (Panjabi)

Sound	Korean	Devanagari	Thai	Tamil	Gurmukhi
r	ㄹ	र	ร	ர	ਰ
ya	야	य	ย	ய	ਯ

The Key Actions of the Mouth

Stopped Throat	Aspirated	Voiced	Voiced Aspirated	Nasal
Consonant Starts with the Throat Closed	Throat opens and puffs air or a 'h' sound over the consonant. In some languages, the 'h' isn't as accented as others	Voice Resonates Over the Consonant	Voice Resonates Over the Consonant AND puffs air over the consonant (which opens the throat)	Sound is Directed Through the Nose
Semi Vowel	Sibilant	'H' Aspirate	Voice Base
Not Quite a Consonant Not Quite a Vowel – Letters in this category are 'fluid' versions where 'full contanct' isn't really made with the 'cardinal point'. Think of it in English – is 'y' REALLY a consonant? (despite what your teachers told you)... or is it a vowel?	'S' Hissing Sound	'H' Sound Open Throat	Root Symbol that Signifies the Voicebox

Colour Coding

I have also colour coded each category within the sound system to give a colourful representation of the textual glyph. There are 5 base colours that correspond to each of the 5 cardinal points of the mouth (see above).

When comparing the sound shifts from the original base letter to the target language letter, you can either follow the 'glyph' transliterations in the octagon adjacent the target letter, or just look at the colour changes. Getting a visual and emotional representation of these sound shifts through colour is another device that I find really useful in 'embedding' the language within me.

Ready to Go!

"Stuart Jay Raj's Indic Script Consonant Compass v1.0 – Southeast Asian Version"

There were so many languages to choose from. I broke this chart down to 8 scripts that I think would cover a good portion of the globe. The languages / scripts with my reasoning for choosing them are:

Language	Reason
Devanagari	Devanagari is used to write a slew of Indic languages including Hindi, Marathi, Nepali and has also become the standard that Sanskrit is rendered in – although Sanskrit writings can commonly be found in local scripts like Tamil, Sinhalese, Burmese, Thai, Khmer, Balinese etc. Given Devanagari's popularity and the fact that it has letters to represent each of the base sounds, I chose it as the base script.
Tamil	Tamil is not only popular in India, Sri Lanka and other surrounding countries, but it is also very widely spoken in Singapore and Malaysia (even reaching official language status in Singapore) Given that I am in Southeast Asia, I wanted to develop this chart in particular to help as bigger cross section of the SE Asian community as possible. I think it would be great if this chart could spur people living in countries where Tamil is prevalent to have a go at learning the script. It will open up a whole new world around them. Another reason that I chose Tamil is that it is from the Dravdian stream of languages – and is indeed a very ancient script. You will notice that it's different from the other scripts in the chart in that there are very few base letters. The natural rules that govern how sounds change when preceding / followed by another letter will 'colour' the letter to give it different sounds – Sandhi. – E.g. in English – 'What did you do' is pronounced 'wo dije du' (very rough transliteration without IPA fonts!) Tamil is the 'What did you do' version where the others are more the 'wo dije du' versions.
Panjabi	This is the Gurmukhi script used to write Panjabi. There are many Panjabi speakers all over Southeast Asia, so I thought it would be nice to include this script. In Thailand, there are many Thai born Indians that speak Panjabi at home, but cannot read the Gurmukhi script. Now with this comparison chart, I hope that the links to Thai can be made and again, spur some people that otherwise wouldn't onto learning the script … which will in turn open a new world up in the area of literature, religion, culture and getting in the good-books with Grandma and Grandpa!
Burmese	Another SE Asian Language. There are fascinating things that happen phonetically with Burmese. I have really been getting into learning Burmese lately and am loving every minute of it. The script is very easy to learn once you have one of the other scripts down – and understanding what's going on phonetically vs. script will go a long way to help you start to get the language 'into your body'. There are also many Burmese in Thailand that cannot read or write Thai. Given the right guidance, it shouldn't take more than a few hours for Burmese who have lived in Thailand for any amount of time to start to link the Burmese and Thai Scripts together and open their eyes up to even more of the world around them.
Balinese	Balinese is a beautiful script… not that the others aren't! Sadly, it's a dying art in Indonesia. While 'Bahasa Daerah' – regional languages are taught in Primary school, I have found very small percentage of people that are really proficient at reading and writing Balinese. Hopefully this will help a resurgence J Another reason that I've included both Balinese and Javanese is so that Balinese and Javanese speakers can see the similarities in the scripts! In my humble opinion, the two scripts are basically different fonts of the same script. While Balinese is very fluid and has more of an 'ancient free' feel, Javanese is more 'boxy' and looks more suitable for machine printed media.
Javanese	I love Javanese – and part of the language of course is the script. Apart from that, I have pretty much the same reasoning for including Javanese as I did Balinese.
Thai	After having taught Thai for many years, the Script still takes the number one position for learners' 'obstacles in learning Thai'. I have put this together as one more aid for demystifying the script and in doing so, helping learners of Thai get over a big hurdle. I wrote a post a couple of years ago that was a Fast-track guide for Indians to Learn Thai. This chart could be thought of as an upgrade to that to Indians living, working or looking at coming to Thailand. Once you get this structure down in you subconscious, tone rules will become second nature!... it's built into the system!
Khmer	Being a neighbour to Thailand, much of Thailand's language, culture and customs have flowed from similar streams as Cambodia. Just take a look at any temple in Thailand, or on the roof of most Taxis driving around Bangkok, you'll often see Sanskrit and Pali writings in the Mon / Khmer script. Despite this, very few Thais can read the script. Just like the tone rules for Thai are part and parcel of this 5x5 structure, so too are the 'consonant classes' of Cambodian. Where the Mid and High classes for Thai are the first and second rows + the 'h', sibilants and base throat, the Cambodian 'oo' and 'oa' classes are broken down almost identically. This is my little effort in 'bridging the gap' :)

Download "Stuart Jay Raj's Indic Script Consonant Compass v1.0 – Southeast Asian Version"

As my New Years gift to you for 2009, rather than giving you a cruddy jpg or bmp version (like you see above) and waiting for you to come to my Mnidcraft workshop to receive a full high resolution version, I have included a PDF version of my "Indic Script Consonant Compass – v1.0 – Southeast Asian Version". I have created it using vector graphics, embedding the fonts where possible and expanding any other fonts that could not be embedded. What this means is that you are free to print out the chart to enormous sizes and stick it all over your home, office, toilet and any other place you see fit. Getting one or more of these scripts under your belt is an investment that you won't regret.

Just the Consonants Ma'am

Remember, these are only the consonsants... and admittedly, there are a couple of rare consonants in each script that I haven't included on the chart as it would in my opinion add unnecessary complexity to learning the scripts. There is also some funky stuff happening with the Tamil that I'm working at ironing out in future versions. If there are any Tamil experts out there, drop me a line!

You will also notice that I haven't touched on vowels. … stay tuned… that will come in a later installment.

I also have some surprises planned for this whole 'Indic' kick that I'm on. If time permits, I'm sure that you will see the bizarre fruits that my brain has borne in the near future.

Good Luck!

Stuart Jay Raj – Subconsciously Embedding Morse Code, Sign Language Alphabet and most Importantly … how to GROOVE!

It's a fantastic day in Siam today … why? I'm not quite sure yet, but I'm really enjoying it so far for some reason!!

Before you read any further, check out my latest clip that I've just thrown together. It will form the base of this blog entry.

Where Jazz, Language and Ciphers Meet

Playing for years in my Jazz Trio – "The ROL Trio" with Dale Lee and Kenro Oshidari, we would often experiment with new ideas for soloing and communication when we played together. Kenro is a master of telling a story on his double bass, and Dale likewise. I used to try and take that 'communication' concept to a new level. I would often incorporate into my piano solos, messages in Morse code.

This must have been rumbling in my subconscious a few weeks ago when I dreamed of teaching perfect pitch, relative pitch, how to swing, Morse Code and Sign Language in one big strategic globule!

Words were running through my head. I wrote down several versions and after a little thought decided on what you see in the clips for various reasons.

Lyrics

Mnemonic	Letter	Morse Code
Apple	A	.-
Bees in a Hive	B	-...
Cotton Candy	C	-.-.
Dog's Behind?!	D	-..
Egg!	E	.
Fifty Fat Frogs	F	..-.
Go Go Girl	G	--.
Helicopter	H	....
Ice Cream	I	..
Japan in June	J	.---
Kangaroo	K	-.-
LaBOrat'ry	L	.-..
Mermaid	M	--
Navy	N	-.
Oreos	O	---
Potato Chips	P	.--.
Queue in a Line!	Q	--.-
Revival	R	.-.
Sausages	S	...
Tea	T	-
Unity	U	..-
Victory 'V'	V	...-
Wasabe	W	.--
X-Ray Machine	X	-..-
Yankee Doodle	Y	-.--
Zebra Crossing	Z	--..

Here are some of the concepts that went into the mix when putting this together:

• Language / Learning / Mind / NLP
  • Simultaneous Language Acquisition
  • Using Humour and Emotion in Learning
  • Guiding the Eyes / Utilising Peripheral Vision
  • Subconscious / Unconscious Programming
  • Hearing a new language or 'Morse' as 'Sound Blocks' – not text strings
  • Use of Colour in Learning and Memory
  • Learning Things Without Even Knowing We've Learned Them
• Music
  • Perfect Pitch
  • Relative Pitch
  • Rhythm – the power of 120 beats per minute
  • Pedal Notes – makes the note easier to recall through repetition
  • Pedal Notes – Help change the brainwave state

Language / Learning / Mind / NLP

Simultaneous Language Acquisition

I'm a strong advocate of Simultaneous Language Acquisition. I've found that any time I learn more than one language at the same time, there are synergies that happen that wouldn't have otherwise occurred.

In this clip, I chose two 'candidates' for our lab rats – Morse Code and the American Sign Language (ASL) Finger Spelling Alphabet. They are easy because they have a common link – the Alphabet. I admit that in other languages there are other letters and some of the images that I have used (e.g. Oreos) may not be relevant in some countries / cultures. I always have a problem when trying to make something 'universally applicable', as when you start to get broader with mnemonics, links etc, the 'emotional' potency is sometimes lost that would normally be there from things that have strong emotional value in one's own culture. I would recommend to people who find that some of the words might not sit well with them, to change them.

Some examples of this might be the word 'Laboratory' for 'L'. Some people say 'LABratry', some say 'LaBOratory' and then some say (as I've used in the clip) LaBOratry.

Some people might have an aversion to embedding 'Yankee Doodle' into your psyche too. That's just personal choice I guess J … I fully understand if you'd like to change it to something else.

Humour, Emotion and Learning

I've tried to tap into the 'emotional' realm of things on a number of levels here.

120 bpm

The first thing that I did intentionally was to choose 120 beats per minute. This rhythm sets our brainwaves into a state ideal for 'learning'.

Imagery

I've chosen to use a sparse plain white background. This enhances the images and colours used. I put several filters on myself to try and make the picture look a little more surreal. I didn't want to appear as a 'human teacher' in the video. Just a memory aid that dueled with the pictures opposite.

You can see a similar intentional use of 'space' in training programmes like the Landmark Forum. Many people either love or hate the forum. I will reserve the right to not express my opinions on their philosophies, but they definitely understand how to use space, colour and repetition to have a subconscious impact.

I have tried to choose images that evoke emotions. In some cases I have also tried to choose words that look like the hand-signs. Often these emotions are reinforced by my facial expressions. Some examples are:

A Apple Looks like an Apple

D Dog's Behind – humourous picture / concept. My facial expression reinforces it and the index finger in the sign is reinforced by the dog's tail caught by peripheral vision in the image of the 'dog's behind'

E EGG! – The beat that the word 'egg' comes in on is an off-beat – chosen to represent a 'splatting egg'. The image chosen reinforces it.

K Kangaroo – the Sign already looks like a 'K' and I bounce my fingers slightly to trigger the thought of a Kangaroo

V Victory 'V' – This is a very powerful image the world over. I've abused THREE meanings of this sign. First – the letter 'V' which is the learning target. I've chosen the words 'Victory V' as the Morse peg, and to reinforce the meaning of 'Peace' to keep re-occurring each time the 'Peace' riff comes up.

Y Yankee Doodle – This image is filled with different meanings for different people – depending on what part of the world you're from and what era you're from. I've tried to have a similar expression on my face as Uncle Sam.

Z Zebra Crossing. Rather than using a shot of an actually Zebra Crossing, I finally decided on stark graphic black and white stripes as a cue in peripheral vision.

Subconscious / Unconscious Programming

My kids were singing the song this morning in the car on the way to school. They were sitting in there when I was knocking the tune out on the piano from the beginning, and so now know all the rhythms and melodies.

This morning, I was listening to my daily morse code bulletin and my 4 year old daughter could pick out many of the letters that she heard and referenced the melody and letter that the different letters appeared in my clip. I was very happy – as this was one of my intentions! – To help people to learn without realizing that they're learning.

There are many other devices that I use to do this too. From the Spinning Peace Sign with a riff that is actually 'Peace' in Morse code, to flashing text 'Groove' and strong command words with black text on a white screen –

"Sing the Words to the Tune" (note use of capitals to stress key words)

"Copy my Hand" (not hands plural – subconsciously want to look again to make sure it's right)

"And GROOVE" – (Groove in capitals and flashing)

These all help access the subconscious and the unconscious.

Flicker Rates

There has been extensive research into flicker rates – and how TV actually flashes at a rate that can put us into an altered state. This can be (and no doubt has been)abused by people who manage the medium. It is a fascinating subject though. If you are interested, you might want to start your research here.

Not a Word is Heard

You will notice that you don't HEAR me say a word. I mouth the words, but my voice is essentially the music. I want listeners to be able to hear their own voice in their heads… or even better, to be able to link the concepts together with the rhythm etc without hearing ANY voice. This is a great skill to prepare people for simultaneous interpreting.

Hearing Sound Blocks rather than Text Strings

I've done this in many places. Actually – the whole song! One thing that I hear from experienced teachers of Morse Code is that they struggle to get students to not think of the textual dots and dashes and rather have them starting to hear 'sound blocks'. I would say the same for learning a new language – rather than learning just grammatical structures and spelling, we need to learn to hear the way the meanings are locked into different sound blocks – not just individual words.

Some examples of this in the clip are:

"Prepare for Transmission" – The international Morse is QRV : --.- .-. ...-

"PEACE" :.--. . .- -.-. . (I've intentionally rotated the Peace sign – with the intention that the eyes will follow the bottom 'stokes' in the circle as it spins and take the viewers attention of the text that comes up on the left. It still enters the subconscious, but the main focus is to think of 'Peace' via the symbol accompanied by the organ riff – which is spelling 'Peace'.

"LOVE": .-.. --- ...- .

"End of Message" -The international Morse is AR: .- .-.

Music

To briefly touch on the music specific aspects of the clip.

120 bpm

I already mentioned the use of 120bpm. It's a great thing for a musician to know how to play at a certain bpm on call. 120 is a good standard.

Pedal Note (Holding / repetition of one note)

Even from the 'Mnidcraft' intro before the main clip, you can hear that I have a 'C' pedal note in the background going. 'C' is a good central note to peg oneself when learning to develop perfect pitch. The whole song is in the Key of C, and I utilize certain intervals at different points within the Ionian and blues scales based on C.

The pedal note also helps change brainwave patterns

I've also used this concept on certain key letters like 'Queue in a Line' and 'Zebra Crossing'. These work as anchors. The 'Q' also words as a great point for people looking to develop perfect pitch – you know that that is a 'G' – and it's also a 5^th interval from the root note C – which to resolve would be a perfect cadence.

Beethoven's 5^th

Two great techniques for learning to recognize a minor 3^rd interval is to hum the first 4 notes of Beethoven's 5^th Symphony "DAH DAH DAH DAH!!!!!"…. Beethoven's 5^th is actually in Cmin. It just so happens that 'V' – is the same rhythm… which is very dramatic and so can easily link in with the concept of "Victory V".

It just so happens of course that 'V' is '5' in Roman Numerals... so linking it into Beethoven's Vth is also another reinforcement.

Another tune to get this interval is to hum the first 3 notes of the Lullaby song 'LullaBY' – that is also a minor 3^rd.

What's Next?

This clip is actually part of my Mnidcraft programme. In just a couple of minutes, the clip is able to touch on many of the topics that are close to my heart – and really want to be able to share with other people. These are the things that I believe have led me to have such a good relationship with languages.

If you'd like to run a programme in your neck of the woods, drop me a line / email. I'd love to see how I can adapt it all to work across different languages and cultures.

If you haven't done so already, I've created a Mnidcraft group in Facebook. Go on in and join the group. I will keep you up to date with latest news, materials and events. It also serves as a great meeting point for people who love languages, communication and using their minds!

Mnidcraft - The Art of Language Video ... "Change Your Mind!"

It's both a very happy and sad day here in Bangkok. Sad, because not in a long time have people been so politically polarized ... to the point that today people are baying for blood from both sides of the spectrum.

Now the GOOD news.... I've just finished my latest video edition and posted it up to Youtube. This is the first covering my 'Mnidcraft' series. The first series will be starting on the 2nd of Dec, 2008 in Bangkok. If you're in town, come along!

Facebook Mnidcraft Group Up and Running!

The response to the 'Mnidcraft' Facebook group that I've created is fantastic. Within the first day or so there were over 120 members and counting.

If You Would Like To Attend An Event ...

As sessions get scheduled, I will mark them on there as 'Events' so people can register. Once you click 'accept', you will be contacted to let you know what / how you need to prepare and answer any questions you might have.

RadioBangkok.Net - Sponsorship and Podcasts

Thanks to Bill Hammerton and RadioBangkok.Net, I've been able to increase the audience that the message is getting out to. An added bonus is that thanks to Bill's great networking skills, we have great sponsors like Fraser Suites (Thanks Jacqui) Suk. 11 to help with the Training Facility... though if numbers start to go North, I think we might even have to look at up-sizing future venues.

I've set up an email with RadioBangkok.net that you can make enquiries on - language@radiobangkok.net. Otherwise, my usual 'public' email address still works - stujay@hotmail.com.

Show me the Video Already!

So here it is! ... btw.. if you are a facebook member, I have uploaded a copy of this to the Mnidcraft Group and the resolution looks a whole lot better! Here's the Youtube version.

Taking it On The Road

As I mentioned in the Video, I'm looking forward to taking this programme on the road. I'm excited to see the chemistry that a programme like this has with all different profiles in the community - Adults, Business-people, University Students, Children, Migrants and anyone else willing to "Change Their Mind"!.

Mnidcraft by Stuart Jay Raj - The Art of Language

The Art of Language

“We are wired to learn languages! …- That’s what I was told from childhood, that’s what I believed and that’s what I’ve become.”

This is an exciting week for me! ... and NO I didn't make a spelling mistake... and NO your eyes aren't playing tricks on you :) ...well... maybe they are. The word 'Mindcraft' has been used and registered by many other companies before, but I felt it best sums up what I'm doing. Writing it like 'Mnidcraft' both gets people's attention and in its essence, sums up what this new programme is all about - Who you are, what you see etc. is only what your mind makes of it!... interested? Then read on!...

Over the past few months, I've been doing quite a lot of introspection. I often refer to the emails that I receive in my blog-posts. People are wanting to know 'what's the best way to learn a language?', 'how should I start learning a language?', 'how do I get motivated to learn???'.

But it's the comments like 'Well, it's easy and natural for you to learn languages, but how should your average Joe Blow go about it?' that really got me thinking.

I have worked as a trainer / facilitator for the past ten years or so. When I train, I incorporate many principles of NLP (Neuro-linguistic Programming) into what I do. Many of the techniques that my grandfather had used with me in retrospect really resemble many of the popular techniques employed by NLP practitioners today.

Based on NLP modelling principles, I have put together a programme that has me really pumped. Instead of just suggesting to people the best ways to learn languages, get motivated about languages, prepare themselves for learning languages, techniques for memorizing vocab, kanji, grammar etc. I have put together a programme that embeds all the fundamental HABITS and KNOWLEDGE that make up STUART JAY RAJ through face to face contact and activities that range from learning to recalibrate your hands and touch-type in foreign scripts to identifying languages and accents - even of languages that you don't speak. We'll be decoupling our mind from our bodies through exercises with Rubik's Cubes, the Abacus, musical instruments, learning speed reading techniques, developing cognitive fluency without using words based on exercises taken from simultaneous interpreting training, learn now to be 'funny' in different languages / cultures, how to gain acceptance and render 'who we are' in palatable forms in our target language's culture, hone subconscious assessment skills that allow us to analyse people based on the way they talk, how they dress, how they sit, who they talk to, learn fundamental principles of language including phonetics, IPA, tonal languages, Indic languages and even a touch of computer languages!.

I will be running the workshops in conjunction with RadioBangkok.Net - there will be podcasts available via Radiobangkok (and of course fed through this blogsite as well (http://stujay.blogspot.com) that support what's learned in the sessions.

Facebook Mnidcraft Group

I have also started a group in Facebook for participants / anyone else interested in the programme wanting to network with like-minded people. We can use it as a place to exchange ideas, experiences, files etc.

Should everything go well with the first few runs of the series here in Thailand, I will look at taking it on the road in the second quarter of 2009.

So without any further ado, for my blog viewers, here's the official 'blurb' that will be going out about the programme. It might well change a little between now and when I run the first series in Bangkok in December - but you will get the general idea!

Mnidcraft - The Art of Language

“We are wired to learn languages! …- That’s what I was told from childhood, that’s what I believed and that’s what I’ve become.”

Now having fluency in over 15 languages and a solid grounding in over 30, polyglot Stuart Jay Raj has delved into what makes him ‘him’ and from his findings has put together his ‘Mnidcraft – The Art of Language’ series.

Mnidcraft empowers anyone with a will to succeed to develop the same aptitude for languages and communication as what Stuart Jay Raj possesses based on powerful NLP modeling principles.

NLP Modeling

NLP modeling is the practice of isolating essential patterns that makes someone successful and duplicating them into others in a way that they are practiced unconsciously.

Stuart has carefully designed activities where you will not only learn the secrets that have crafted his aptitude for language, but will also have these skills, habits and knowledge embedded within you, breathing new life into your relationship with language.

7 Drivers of Mnidcraft

The 7 Drivers of Mnidcraft are:

1. Memory / Mind Capacity Building
2. Social Awareness
3. Relationships / Rapport
4. Motivation / Attitude
5. Language Fundamentals
6. Hard Skills
7. Hard Knowledge

More than just the ability to learn languages

Developing an aptitude for language is actually just a side effect of the Mnidcraft series. You will also develop new skills including:

• Super Memory
• Perfect Pitch
• Touch-type in multiple languages including Thai, Sanskrit and Korean
• Be ‘funny’ across cultures
• Increase self-esteem in yourself and others
• Mimic sounds, body language and mannerisms
• Build instant rapport with people you’ve just met
• Master tones in Tonal Languages including Thai, Chinese and Vietnamese
• Solve the Rubik’s Cube
• Use an Abacus
• Circular Breathing
• Morse Code / Sign Language alphabets
• Speed Reading
• Simultaneous Interpreting
• XML and programming fundamentals

Schedule

The initial series will be run as 4 x half day sessions. Each session can be attended as a stand alone session, but of course the full impact will come as a result of following the whole programme and becoming part of the online community

Coming to a city near you

Like I mentioned above, I'm really excited about this programme. I can see how it's going to help people regardless of their linguistic or academic background. Not only will it get participants motivated about language, but also music, math, I.T., problem solving, networking, business, public speaking and possibly even stand-up comedy!

If you're not in Thailand and you'd like this run in your city / school / university etc., drop me a line and I'll see what we can do :)

That's all for now - no doubt I'll keep you posted as to the results of the series in the coming months.

Turning a Love for Language into a Career - Stuart Jay Raj's Response to a Letter from a Frustrated Polyglot

I just received a letter from another Polyglot that I had come into contact by a fantastic language learning site out there - how-to-learn-any-language.com . After asking his permission, I've pasted the letter and my response here in the hope that it might be of assistance to other frustrated language lovers. Original Email:

Dear Stuart, I take the liberty of dropping you a line for a piece of advice as a younger fellow-polyglot. What I really find terrific about your professional profile, besides your impressive linguistic achievements, is your ability to connect with people and situations, to be the right man in the right place, and basically to make a living out of a passion we all share. I lack this spontaneous talent, so I thought that perhaps you’d spare me a couple of tips to get me started in some way. I love languages more than anything else, and I feel that they love me back, so to speak. I have been working on and off as a freelance translator for publishing houses, but I’m currently facing unexpected challenges, and I would like to find new ways to draw on my gift to fight back. Pursuing my career in humanities as a university researcher in Europe is getting harder and harder every day due to a severe lack of funding, no matter how qualified you are. I feel I’m wasting my time and my skills queuing in front of doors that won’t open, and if by chance I could manage to merge my passion for languages with a real job with real wages I wouldn’t even think twice… Can you give me a general idea how you started out, what kind of business needs you were the answer for, what kind of service a language expert may offer, and drop me a hint? University life kind of atrophied my practical 6th sense, but I’m sick of this game and I’m ready to get back on the track. You can’t imagine what a difference a few expedient suggestions could make… I thank you heartily in advance! Keep up the good work, , Ph. D. (<-- as if it mattered these days)

Stu's Response

Hi Francesco, Thank you for your email. I've mentioned a few times through various interviews or clips that my grandfather used to teach me that if you do something you love doing, people will pay you good money to do it. ... Well.. that's kinda true, but there's a catch! You have to do it in a way that it brings value to other people. No matter what way you cut it, there are very real limitations to the extent that your average polyglot can go. If they're not working as a teacher, translator, interpreter, most are gobbled up as spooks, never to see the light of day on the corporate side of the rainbow. There IS money however in finding ways for companies human resources to work more effectively for them, or in improving the relationship that they have with their customers, or in giving them market insights that they or their normal marketing teams might be overlooking. This is where language, the ability to communicate with people - from grass roots levels to CEO / Presidential comes in. Don't sell yourself as a 'language expert'. That means nothing to the corporate world. They would much rather hire a 'cross-regional corporate communications agent', or a 'Business Development Specialist' that can go in on the ground and find out what's really going on 'on the ground' and translate it into a workable solution that can be quantified. Quantifying a financial value for the work you do is very important. My advice to you would be to find out what business networks are running in your area - Chambers of Commerce, Rotary, HR Associations etc. Try and start building a network of decision makers - CEO / Director level and listen to the issues that they're facing. As they're speaking, try and figure out whether you have anything that could be of value to them. Go home and sit and work out how you could 'package' your skill-set and your network of people in a way that could help them. It might be working with the management team in helping them understand the cultures of the people they're working with, or it might be to get on the ground and build communication networks or just understanding of how to get the most out of working with the 'foreign' management. If you're in a market where this isn't relevant, maybe you might think of moving somewhere where your value is appreciated more. It comes down to one thing - you need to bring a Return On Investment to any relationship you have - whether it be with family, friends, students or clients. I've found that if I can do this by digging into my own experience, networks, knowledge or skills and sharing it when appropriate, it is very Karmic. Eventually it comes back to benefit me in one shape or other. Stu

Polyglot Stuart Jay Raj “Language Secrets From a Linguistic Junkie" Multilingual Video Post Episode 1 (2 Parts)

Episode 1

Part 1

Part 2

About a week ago, I was fortunate to have been invited to attend a Second Language Acquisition seminar by Language Acquisition guru Dr. Stephen Krashen (http://www.sdkrashen.com) , hosted by the Concordian International School here in Bangkok. Stephen was a real inspiration and after speaking with him that day, I was inspired to do something new.

A couple of days later I went out and bought a new video camera and tried my hand at starting to put some video responses to emails that I’ve received over the past year or so. Last Friday I swung over to the home of http://RadioBangkok.Net Director Bill Hammerton’s place and we shot what will hopefully be the first in many video episodes on language learning, linguistics, culture, language and culture based business and anything else that viewers find interesting.

I've tried to answer some of the many questions that have been sent to me in emails and messages since I posted my first clip on Youtube in 2007. I thought to make it interesting, I've tried to choose several different languages to respond to (subtitled in English).

Questions include:

“What separates languages - politic or linguistic differences?”

“What's the history behind some of your languages?”

“What's the most difficult language?”

“What are some secrets to learning new languages?”

“How do I get motivated to learn languages?”

One thing that I wanted to get across in the videos is that I am just a human being like everyone else, and my brain faces the same challenges as everyone else. The thing that lets me take the languages that I have been able to take to an advanced level is motivation / attitude. I've chosen languages that I'm at different competency levels in. They range from:

‘very fluent’ – Mandarin, Indonesian, Thai

to

‘let’s dust the cobwebs off’ – Italian, Spanish, Danish, Swedish, Hindi, Javanese

to

‘shockingly elementary’ – Japanese, Vietnamese, Norwegian

Just putting this clip together was great to get the linguistic juices flowing again in some of my dormant languages.

You might remember a post from last year about Vietnamese. I hadn’t really used Vietnamese much after that post. It wasn’t until I travelled to Nha Trang for Miss Universe that I had a real environment to incubate my Vietnamese. I was able for the first time to start interacting in Vietnamese with native speakers. I used the taping of this episode as a personal challenge to air for the record my current (low) level of Vietnamese. This post has set a bar for myself - so hopefully in a few months time, my Vietnamese will be much more fluent than what you see in this clip. I'll keep you updated on my progress!

Just for fun in the end, I’ve also thrown in a little sign-language finger-spelling (American and Autralian) as well as some very low-tech Morse-code.

If you have any suggestions for topics for future episodes, email me at the email you see in the clip, or you can post a comment on this blog – or on the Youtube clip if you like.

The Language of Perfect Pitch

I received an email in my Youtube box this morning that touched on a topic that I had always meant to post about. I figured this is a better time than ever to write about it. Here's the letter:

Perfect Pitch Hey Stuart, I want to learn a language, but this language is not a common one. It's the language of "perfect pitch." Could you please give me some advice as to how to obtain perfect pitch? Thanks

Perfect Pitch

I touched lightly in one of the interviews that I posted on the Thai TV Show 'Joh Jai' on the idea of perfect pitch. For me, every sound – whether it's a musical note, a sound in speech or just a 'bang' of a gun, has not only a colour, but also texture, shape and emotion. I don't know where these things came from. I just remember them always being there. Perhaps it's thanks to my grandfather's advice that I've mentioned in other posts of never allowing "words to limit my thoughts – always think LOUD". That 'LOUD' for me wasn't just loud colours, but it was anything that would stand out in my mind and have an emotional effect on me.

A Musical Family

I come from a very musical family. My mother sings and plays the guitar, my brother the same, my sister sings and plays the piano a bit, I play piano. I have musician cousins, aunts, uncles and extended family too. When I was very young, we would be driving and my mum would make each of us in the car take different parts singing acapella.

Feeling harmony – intervals such as major and minor 3rds, 5ths, 4ths, flat 5ths, flat 7ths was something that when I was younger, I assumed everyone could do it naturally. Hearing 'notes' in my mind was another thing that I thought everyone 'just did'. It was only when I was a bit older that I realized that most people had had this ability 'muffled'.

'But I'm Tone Deaf!'

When talking about 'perfect pitch' or even teaching people to learn tonal languages, I am frequently confronted with the excuse 'I'm tone deaf'. Although I read in the Wikipedia page on tone deafness that some believe that it could be genetically influenced, I find it very hard to swallow that argument.

Tonal Languages and Tone Deafness

On the language front, of the billions of people who speak tonal languages such as Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese etc., I am yet to come across a native speaker that doesn't speak with the correct tones (according to standards of whatever dialect that they speak / grew up with). Could it be that only non-tonal language speakers could be genetically tone deaf? I don't think so. I think it comes down more to exposure and active use rather than a genetic displacement.

Exposure to Pitch, Tones and a Buffet of 'Sound Stuff'

I mentioned earlier that when I was young, because of the musical 'tone' of my family (no pun intended... well maybe a little one), I was fortunate to be exposed to many different concepts in sound. One of the earliest 'songs' that I can remember is the tuning of a guitar:

Notes of a guitar's standard open tuning. One of the first 'songs' I can remember.

It was the first 'song' that was played before any other song – e e e e BBBBbbbbbBBBBB e e e e BBBBBB… my mum would be tuning the guitar working from the top down. The 4^th interval of the top string 'E' and the next string 'B' would go from good to a dissonance that was like an earthquake in my eardrum, then back to a nice 'buzz'. When the notes 'buzzed' together nicely, I knew that they were in tune. She would then work back down the strings in the same fashion. If there was any suspicion that the notes weren't in tune, she would 'ping' the harmonics to make sure that they were indeed in 'sync'. When there's dissonance between harmonics on a guitar, I think even the least trained ear could notice that something is askew as you can physically feel the air 'wobbling' out of sync ... you can feel the air going 'woob woob woob wooooooobbbbb' in your ear.

There were other 'songs' that were added to my vocabulary as time went on. 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' in C, 'Kumbaya' in D and the hits went on. Even before I could play the songs on the guitar or piano, I knew what keys they were in, because I would always here my mum and brother talk about the keys that they preferred to play various songs in.

This picture is just for aesthetic pleasure - I don't think this was the Mary that had a little lamb in the version I envisaged when I was a kid - but in hindsight it would have been a nice notion! :)

Songs are 'Pegs' to Represent 'Notes' or Frequencies

Here's an exercise if you're interested in developing perfect pitch.

• Go to your CD collection or grab your iPod and go to a song that you like and have listened to many times. Don't play the song yet.
• Make sure that your surroundings are quiet – sit in silence for a minute or so.
• Think of the song that you chose. Important – DON'T HUM OR SING IT YET. Just think of it. In your mind and in your mind only, think of the introduction to the song, think of any 'key moments' in the song. Think of the chorus, think of any lead breaks. Think of how the song ends. Think of the emotions that the song makes you feel.
• Do you feel that the song is any specific 'colour'? If so, paint that song in the colour and emotion that you're thinking of. Splash the paint all over it, fly around inside the song if you like and smatter the paint throughout it.
• Now pretend that your mind has a 'volume control'. With your eyes closed, turn the volume right up so that the song is blasting in your mind's ears. Even if someone came into the room now, you couldn't hear them because the song in your mind is playing so loudly now.
• Ok – wake up!
• Now play the song on your iPod or CD player.
• Does the song sound the same as what you imagined it to sound like? I find in most cases, even people who are tone deaf – when they start humming a 'golden oldie' like 'Dock of the Bay' or the intro to Michael Jackson's 'Beat It', or even the 'dah dah dah dahhhhhh' of Beethoven's 5^th, they are more than often spot on when it comes to starting on the right note.

Over the years, I've built up a menu of songs that to me are the epitome of 'keys' or 'notes'. Some of them include (I've also included the colours that these notes make me feel):

• 'Groovy Kind of Love' = A (Yellow)
• 'All the Things you Are' – Ab (and Fm) (Greyish yellow)
• 'Rhythmning' – Bb (Dark Greyish Blue)
• 'A-Train' = C (Green)
• 'Love Lifts Us Up Where We Belong' = D (Woody Brown)
• 'Guitar Tune' = E (Darkish Red)
• 'Round Midnight' = Eb (Even darker red with black splotches)
• 'Bye Bye Blackbird' = F (Orange flame)
• 'All Blues' = G (Brown – lighter than D)

If you are a musician and you know how to play the songs, think of the intervals that make up the song. For example in the song "Bye Bye Blackbird", for me that's a very distinct Yellow down to Orange Major Third start of the melody (A -> F). I actually see in my mind a swirling sandwich of yellow and orange as those first two notes play.

In this sense, you get both perfect pitch and relative pitch through the same exercise.

It gets to the point that you don't know what came first – the chicken or the egg… or in this case, the song or the key. If I hear a note, I will normally see a colour with it, my hands will know where on the keyboard it would be and other songs that are in the same key start to congregate in my mind around that song like ants to a pile of sugar.

You may be wondering why during the above exercise I mentioned not to 'sing the song out loud' yet. That's because I've found that sometimes people hear the song in the right pitch in their imagination, but the ability of actually producing that sound with their vocal chords 1^st time needs a bit of work. That's why it's good to just compare your mind's song with the actual song first – check if you are indeed close to the real pitch.

When you think of it, it's a miracle that we can actually normally without thinking produce out of thin air a predetermined frequency with our voice. How do we 'know' that a particular tension on our vocal chords will produce a particular frequency. Just thinking about it blows me away. I just accept that there are some things that I can't explain and that we can do it.

As you get better, you'll be able sing 'notes to order'. And even microtones – notes between notes. I have a cousin – Kerri Ayling (speaking of musical / business genius, take a look at their site and history at The WAM Communications Group ) that is notorious for her uncanny ability to pick out notes / frequencies with her perfect pitch and tell how many 'cents' they are out from the standard frequencies. Kerry was a great device to have lying around the studio when the recording engineer was trying to fix up pitchy vocals on tracks that had been recorded.

The Disadvantage of Perfect Pitch

This sometimes causes a little havoc. I was playing in a jam session a few months back where we had to play a standard in some obscure key because of the singer's vocal range. This was one of those songs that I had played a million times before, and although I could have transposed it in my head straight down from Eb to Bb, I was lazy. I used the 'transpose' button and knocked the calibration of the electric piano down a 4^th. Something very strange happened. It was like 'Culture Shock' of a musical kind! My mind was telling me of the colours that had to come next because that song was a part of me now (the song was Stellar by Starlight by the way). All of a sudden, I was hearing deep blue where I was supposed to be hearing RED. I was hearing yellow and green flat 5ths where I was supposed to be hearing browny orange ones! My fingers on about 4 occasions during the song tried to recalibrate themselves to play the colours that they were expecting to hear.

Can Anyone Develop Perfect Pitch?

I believe YES, they can. Just like I've never heard a native speaker of Chinese or Thai speak with incorrect tones, I believe that everyone has an inherent ability to define pitches. For some however, they have had it hidden away from them since childhood. It's something that needs to be fostered back into action. Try the above exercise a few times a day until your strike rate starts to get better. Slowly build up a vocabulary of 'songs' that you can use as reference points for notes, chords and intervals.

How Does This Relate to Learning Tonal Languages?

I think some of the same principles can be applied. As with being able to pin point specific musical notes, I think that the amount of 'noise' that is crowding out the important variables of sound when we're learning language needs to be filtered out. In language, that 'noise' could be actual ambient 'noise' that distracts us from really listening to what the native speakers of the language are saying. It could be the 'noise' created by the filters of our mother tongues' sound system, subconscious sound and rhythm rules etc. It could also be the 'noise' of our own psyche telling ourselves that 'I'm tone deaf - I can't hear this - I can't do this'. Those sort of negative affirmation can be very destructive to our language learning aspirations. The first thing is to realise what forms of 'NOISE' we have influencing / impeding and interpreting what we here and find a way to at least for the moment, put those noises aside.

Work in Progress

I've never sat down like this and tried to work a method out for developing perfect pitch.

If this does work for you, please do let me know!