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Child’s Wordplay – Proof that You are a Natural Verbal Genius

Chapter Two

‘Language is the immediate gift of God.’

Noah Webster

In this chapter I will introduce you to the best language learner the world has ever known – that master of Verbal Intelligence, the human baby!

I will show you the ‘secret’ formulas that babies use to achieve their astounding results. As a consequence, you will discover new approaches to: ‘cheating’/copying; play as a learning tool; the making of mistakes and ‘failure’; creating success from ‘disaster’; general attitudes to learning; and the incredible ‘genius power’ of Persistence.

You will come to realize that, as a baby, you used all the right tools to develop your Verbal Intelligence. As your life progressed, you discarded them, and as a result the development of your Verbal Intelligence came to a grinding halt.

However, all you have to do now is pick these tools up again and continue with your verbal growth. This time around, you’ll not only have the tools you once used to learn and remember thousands of new words – you will have the additional tools from The Power of Verbal Intelligence, which will enable you to use the ‘baby skills’ as a launching pad for your own accelerated development!

You will end up as an even better vocabulary and language learner than the baby.

Let’s start with the fascinating story of a Japanese musician, Suzuki, who made some amazing discoveries about your incredible Verbal Intelligence potential.

Suzuki’s Story

Suzuki was a Japanese teacher, musician and instrument maker. He had two special paradigm-shifts in his awareness that changed his life forever, and which are at this very moment changing the lives of millions and the way the world thinks about all babies and their Verbal and Creative Intelligences.

Suzuki’s first revelation came when he was visiting a giant incubarium for Japanese larks.

The Japanese breeders of these songbirds take literally thousands of eggs and incubate them in giant, warm, silent halls that act as a gigantic nest. Silent, that is, with the exception of one sound – that of a lark Master Singer, a veritable song-bird Beethoven!

Suzuki noticed to his amazement that every little chick that hatched, automatically began to copy the master singer. After a few days he observed that each chick, having started out by purely copying songs, began to develop its own variations on the original Master Song. The breeders waited until the chick musicians had developed their own styles, and then selected from them the next Master Singer, and so the process developed.

‘Astounding!’ thought Suzuki. ‘If a bird’s tiny, tiny brain can learn so perfectly, then surely the human brain, with its vastly superior abilities, should be able to do the same and better!’

This line of reasoning led Suzuki to his next revelation, which, when he announced it, made many of his friends think that he had lost a large number of his own brain cells.

Suzuki, in a delirium of enthusiasm for what he had realized, rushed around telling everyone he knew of his remarkable discovery: that every Japanese child learns to speak Japanese!

His friends and colleagues patted him on the shoulder, informing him rather firmly they were actually already aware of that. ‘But No! No!’ declared Suzuki, ‘they really do, and it’s amazing!’

Suzuki was correct. Like Newton before him, he had discovered something that was so obvious no one could see it – that any baby, born in any country, automatically learns, within two years, the language of that country.

This means that every normal baby’s brain is capable of learning millions of potential languages.

If you, dear reader, had been born in and lived for the first few years of your life in a totally different country from that you are familiar with now, your own baby brain would have absorbed that language as rapidly and fluently as you now speak your own main tongue.

If you, for example, were a Caucasian baby and had been born in Beijing, you would not have looked up with your little baby eyes and thought ‘Oh, Chinese. Far too complex for me! Think I’ll stay silent for the rest of my life!’

Not only would you have learned the language of that country, you would have learned the specific language sounds of the special area of that country in which you had been born – your accent.

What Suzuki had discovered was that the voice/ear/brain system was a virtually perfect copying machine, with an almost infinite capacity to learn the music (words and rhythms) of an infinite number of languages.

What’s more, it didn’t matter whether the language was Chinese, Portuguese, Music-ese, Maths-ese, Art-ese, Burmese, or Japanese. So long as a baby was given the right learning environment and proper encouragement, it could learn anything!

mimicking

What Suzuki had discovered was the Brain Principle of Mimicking. This principle states that your brain is designed to learn by copying the best of what it sees around it. If it is allowed to do this, it will be capable of ongoing learning at an accelerated rate.

For the bulk of the 20th century we incorrectly thought of mimicking as copying, copying as cheating, and cheating as bad. With this incorrect way of thinking, we created habits of learning that increasingly diminished our abilities to develop our intelligences, especially Verbal Intelligence.

We even came up with ridiculous assumptions to back-up this incorrect thinking, such as that once you are past the age of 10, the development of Verbal Intelligence becomes much more difficult, and that once you are past the age of 25 it becomes virtually impossible.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

By applying the principle of mimicking, as the songbird chicks do, and the additional knowledge you will gain from The Power of Verbal Intelligence, you will be able to increase your rate of vocabulary acquisition and word power at a pace that makes a baby’s seem embarrassingly slow by comparison!

play

When the baby is ‘at work’ dealing with the massive tasks of survival and learning, its main tool is Play.

Play is the method the universe has designed for allowing the brain to learn most easily.

How is this so?

Because play involves activity that is enjoyable, often amusing, and always imaginative. It usually involves physical activity, often vigorous and long, and demands that the brain makes new associations between things.

You will know that all babies love to play, especially with words. They roll them around in their mouths, often purposely mispronounce them to make them more interesting or funny, play with different variations and combinations of words and parts of words, change the pitch, speed, tone and volume of their voices, and are always curious about new words and their meanings and associations.

Unfortunately during the last two centuries learning has been made much more serious, and the element of play removed except in the classrooms of superb teachers. Even at the beginning of the 21st century this is still happening. In America some educators are leading a movement to eliminate play from schools altogether, including playtime. Their argument? That if you eliminate play and playtime, you will save time and get far better results from the young brains because they will be 100 per cent dedicated to ‘serious’ work. Such a policy is like saying that if we remove children’s legs their bodies would be lighter and therefore more mobile!

It is by applying the Brain Principle of Play that babies and children rapidly develop their Verbal Intelligence.

You can begin to see the implications for yourself …

love of learning

Another of the baby’s secret weapons in the development of its Verbal Intelligence is its boundless love of learning. This love is both led and fed by an insatiable curiosity.

The instant the baby’s brain asks the next question or wants to know the ‘next step’, all its senses open, and all its energies are immediately directed to the achievement of that answer; that goal.

This openness and focus are exactly what the brain needs to take in, understand and remember new verbal information.

‘The use of increasingly complex and sophisticated language structures, and the units (vocabulary) which make up those structures, is one of the defining characteristics of evolutionary advance and development. The training and nurturing of your skill in this area is your natural right, your own responsibility, and a rare opportunity. If you grasp it, it will provide you with exceptional benefits. Claim it. Accept it. Develop it!’

Tony Buzan

Ironically the baby’s love of learning is accompanied by something that most adults think is not acceptable or permissible, but which forms the foundation-stone in the development of Verbal Intelligence. It is the next ‘Baby Secret’.

making mistakes / ‘failing’

Does the baby make mistakes?

Yes!

More than the average adult learner?

Many more!

How can it be that a super-learner like the baby makes more mistakes than the average adult, who does not learn so fast?

Because the baby knows the secret: making mistakes and experiencing ‘failures’ is one of the fastest ways to accelerate your learning.

If you don’t make mistakes it means that you have not tried. If you do not try you will never learn.

The baby has hit upon the secret that if you combine your love of learning with creativity and taking risks, you will not only make more mistakes than most other people, you will have many more successes.

All research shows that the world’s great geniuses simply carried on using this Baby Success Formula. They wrote millions of words, painted millions of brush strokes, composed millions of notes, and formulated millions of ideas. They then discarded much of it, and kept the best!

‘Language is the dress of thought.’

Samuel Johnson

There is one other secret principle at which the baby is a world champion:

persistence

Combined with the love of learning and the making of mistakes, the baby realizes that without persistence, no progress is ever made.

Just think of how many times a baby sometimes tries to pronounce a complex word before getting it finally right; it is sometimes hundreds of ‘failures’.

Does the baby go into a sulk and think something like ‘What’s the point?! I’ve tried thousands of times and still can’t get this bloody word! This language-learning lark is too hard; it’s not for me – I give up!’

Of course not.

The baby uses each mistake as a platform for the next attempt. While doing this it makes a game of the whole thing, relishing the process, and always keeping its eye on the inevitable success of the goal.

‘Language is the armoury of the human mind.’

Coleridge

You are now ready to enter the playground!

verbal workout

Word Puzzle Number 3

See the answers here

tustea	__ __ __ __ X X
lapcita	__ __ __ __ X __ X
lacyrit	__ __ X X __ __ __
hubog	__ __ __ X X

Clue: Makes you happy and fit __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

Verbal Intelligence Tip

 Always answer the easiest questions first, no matter where they are in the list or linear order you have in front of you.

Why?

Because answering the easiest questions first will allow you to ‘get one under your belt’, your para-conscious brain will realize that there is already less to do than when you started, and this will significantly reduce stress, while simultaneously boosting your confidence.

Secondly, answering these questions first will establish a habit in your brain – the habit of success. And success breeds success!

Word Puzzle Number 4

See the answers here

Insert the word that completes the first word and begins the second.

(Clue: finish)

T R (__ __ __) I V E

Mimic the Best

In exactly the same way that a baby copies those people it considers to be the most powerful and successful (its parents!), copy those experts, public figures, actors, sports personalities or people from your own profession whom you consider to be ‘Top of the Pops’ in the imaginative use of words, as well as in range and clarity.

Make a point of observing and studying them, noting especially interesting words that they use, as well as their methods of delivery.

Play with Words

Remember that one of the baby’s most powerful learning tools is ‘play’. Apply this to the development of your own vocabulary. Mix sections of different words to come up with startling new words and meanings, and enjoy the freedom this gives you. Make up doggerel verse, rhymes and palindromes (phrases that read the same both forwards and backwards – ‘Madam, I’m Adam’ for example!).

Shakespeare, one of the highest Verbal Intelligences the planet has ever known, loved to play with words, and as a result added over 200 new words and expressions that are now common to the global language. Try to catch up with him!

It was this freedom of mind and ability to create that gave rise to the study of Holanthropy, the discipline that arose from my own frustration at not being able to find any discipline in which I could study the whole (Greek ‘holos’) human-being (Greek ‘anthropos’).

Another new word you might enjoy comes from a friend of mine and a teacher of Holanthropy, Lex McKee. A lover of words as well as a musician and artist, Lex had been very happy with the word onomatopoeic (a word whose sound imitates that of the noise or action it describes, such as ‘buzz’).

However, he suddenly realized that this word applied only to sound, and as he was also an artist, he wanted a word that appealed also to the sense of vision. He simply took ‘onomatopoeic’, and pasted on to it a preliminary ‘v’, thus creating ‘vonomatopoeic’ – a word meaning ‘sounding and looking like the thing described!

Alphabet fridge magnets are the perfect fun way to explore and make up new words and meanings. What’s more, the entire family can join in, creating more and more words on that wonderful public notice and message board that is many people’s fridge door!

Look Out for Unknown Words!

Keep a constant look out for words of which you don’t know the meaning, and also for words that are completely new.

For many adults, facing the fact that they ‘don’t know’ is disturbing. As a result they tend to try to avoid such situations. If you look at this ‘formula for behaviour’ for a moment, you will realize that it is a formula for disaster! If you only stay safely in areas that are completely known to you, and always avoid those that are not, what will you ever learn?

Nothing!

The baby is exactly the opposite. Why? Because a baby loves not knowing! Not knowing opens up the infinite opportunity for learning fresh, new and exciting things. The baby is purely ignorant, and ignorant (which comes from the Latin ‘ignorare’) simply means ‘to not know’. Realize that the more you know you know, the more you will know that there is still more to know!

Approach your pursuit of new and fresh knowledge like a baby does – with enthusiasm and gusto!

Give Your Brain a Healthy Diet

Your brain survives on the four foods of Information, Nutrition, Oxygen and Love. One of your brain’s main sources of information is Vocabulary and Language. Therefore feed your brain a healthy diet of words, making sure that you ‘eat’ regularly, that your ‘diet’ is varied, that you constantly supply yourself with ‘fresh food’ and that you never ‘fast’ for too long. Sometimes it’s good to binge!

Learn From Your Mistakes

As with ignorance, many adults also are discomforted by and afraid of making mistakes, especially with words. They, mistakenly, think that this shows them to be slow, unintelligent and somehow not worthy.

Nothing could be further from the truth!

If you want to learn how to speak any vocabulary brilliantly, learn from the greatest language learners there are – babies and children. They seldom hide in the safety of words they know; their preference is to leap for the stars, and to make as many mistakes as are necessary to get there.

That is why they often prefer hard or ‘more difficult’ words: these give them a better game to play in acquiring them, and often lead to mistakes that are much more humorous and which provide many more belly laughs than the ‘correct’ ones!

We now know that mistakes are not an impediment to learning; mistakes are the golden pathway to learning.

Enjoy all of yours from now on …

Become Friends with Words

You bring your feelings and emotions more into play when you increase your Verbal Intelligence. Many people mistakenly think of words as ‘intelligent’, ‘analytical’, ‘hard’ and ‘cold’. And who would really want to have a relationship with anything (or anyone) that only had those qualities?

But words are in fact ‘wondrous’, ‘imaginative’, ‘sensual’, ‘sexy’, ‘warm’, ‘delicious’ and many other things which would make you lust after a relationship with anything or anyone possessing these qualities.

As soon as you start making friends with words, as babies do, they make friends with you, and allow you to meet, learn from and play with them much more rapidly and with thousands of times greater enjoyment and fun than before.

Persist in Your Pursuit of Verbal Power

Remember that one of the prime qualities used to describe the incredible intelligence and accomplishments both of babies and the great geniuses is that single word: persistence. The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘persistence’ as meaning: ‘To continue firmly in an opinion or course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition; to continue to persist.’ It comes from the Latin ‘per’ and ‘sistere’ – ‘to stand firm’.

If you steadfastly pursue your goal of Verbal Intelligence, you will become much more Verbally Intelligent, and will approach the incredible skills of the baby and the genius in this area. Persist and you will overcome all obstacles to learning. Persist and your mistakes will turn into successes. Persist and you will acquire thousands of new word-friends.

Persist!

Word Power Booster Number 2

In this vocabulary booster section I introduce you to some fascinating adjectives. They will spice up your conversation, adding richness and depth to it. Choose the definition that you think is closest to the correct meaning from the four options given for each. See the answers here.

1 DIDACTIC (dy-dák-tik) (a) Teacher-like; instructive (b) Aggressive (c) Explosive (d) Like an extinct bird

2 SURREPTITIOUS (surep-tísh-us) (a) Grey in colour (b) Serrated (c) Stealthy or secret (d) Completely silent

3 HERETICAL (heh-rét-ikal) (a) Deserving of punishment (b) At the present time (c) Greek behaviour (d) Revolutionary; contrary to the official/established viewpoint

4 COPIOUS (kópe-eus) (a) Able (b) Abundant; plentiful (c) Religious (d) Relating to the police

5 IMPERATIVE (im-pé-rra-tif) (a) Royal (b) Relating to the empire (c) Vital (d) Strong

6 INEFFACEABLE (in-e-fáce-abul) (a) To confront (b) Incapable of being erased; indelible (c) Female face (d) Building

7 INESTIMABLE (in-ést-im-abul) (a) Not enough time (b) Priceless; immeasurable (c) Unfriendly (d) Timetable

8 UNPRECEDENTED (un-préss-e-den-ted) (a) Never known or done before (b) Description of dental procedures (c) Damaged (d) Before production

9 UNEQUIVOCAL (un-e-kwívo-cal) (a) Different voices (b) Unambiguous; leaving no doubt (c) Unequal (d) Discordant choir

10 CATEGORICAL (kata-górr-ical) (a) Bluntly and unconditionally expressed (b) Dividing into categories (c) About cats (d) Vaguely defined