Oct. 25, 2021

Connecting with your heritage language and learning without travelling with Chesline Pierre-Paul | Ep. #3

Hedvig speaks with Chesline Pierre-Paul, Queer-E-O of a global digital transformation, coaching and social impact consulting company, about learning languages without travelling, language deconstruction, decolonialisation and how this can help develop an empowering, mindful and purposeful language learning practice.

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Transcript

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Hedvig Sandbu: Welcome back everyone.

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Happy Monday!

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We're just going to jump
right into our third episode.

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You'll hear from Chesline Pierre-Paul,
who is one of those people who I

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feel brings a sense of purpose and
vision for changing societal norms

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into everything they do, including
their language learning practice.

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And a lot of the work they do within their
consulting company, and also outside of

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that, and you can read the full bio in
the episode show notes, but a lot of the

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work they do involves breaking apart many
of the myths and pretense around language

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learning, including colonialist ideals
that still shape the way that we think

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about languages and accents today, and
Ches brings that sense of purpose into a

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very conscious, mindful self loving and
empowering language learning practice.

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We're going to talk about how
you can learn a language without

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traveling and Ches will share
their own unique way of approaching

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languages and language learning.

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We're going to talk about language
deconstruction, which was a new

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term to me and de-colonialization
as well through language learning.

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And we'll talk about
what all of that means.

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So here we go.

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Welcome Ches, I'm so
excited to see you here.

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Chesline PP: I'm so excited to be here.

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Thank you so much for this space.

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Hedvig Sandbu: So,  like we've discussed,
I think there's such a breadth of

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topics that we have,  talked about,
uh, over the past kind of six months

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since we first connected, from social
impact and social entrepreneurship

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to multicultural identities and
anti-coloniality, and language learning.

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But let's stick with
language learning for today.

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Could you just give us a
short introduction of your own

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language learning experience?

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Chesline PP: Yeah, definitely.

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Um, I would say the long and short of it
is, you know, um, my parents are political

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refugees and activists from Haiti.

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They migrated to Dominican Republic.

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Then they came to Canada, then
I was born and I was born into a

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reality where that level of, you
know, um, intersecting multilayered

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trans-culturality was always abundant.

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I had family members that spoke,
different languages that I

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moderately or, you know, or non not
extently understood at the time.

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And so it had a Haitian Creole,
French, English, and Spanish.

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So that was the baseline.

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And growing up and I went into
higher education, had a foremost,

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um, focus in in languages.

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And that's how I picked up my own mantle
and going to those, you know, colonialist

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constructs of what a language makes
or doesn't, then questioning myself

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as to how am I solely being prompted
to gain fluency within languages

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that are divorced from my lineage?

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Uh, my self-construct and my
selfhood - challenging that.

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And then looking at decolonization
through that lens as an opportunity

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to re-appropriate and reclaim,
you know, my  biological ancestry.

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So I taught myself my native Afro-
indigenous language, Haitian Creole,

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and then I went on to extend my self
learning capabilities to my other

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languages, went to class to get my papers.

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I have the credentials, but did the
bulk of my own education solo style.

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And that's how I came into the language,
but it feels like a predestination

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because even when I didn't understand
what cousins or family members or

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auntie, or what have you were saying,
it was normalised for me to live in

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a state of heightened disruption.

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And there's a lot of engagement
that was being produced, where

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there was no intelligibility.

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So conversing with people in different
languages I don't know what you're

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saying, granularly, but through the
energy, the flow, the intentionality, I

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was able to lean on different parts and
parts though, and then put it together:

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Oh, you're going to the supermarket,
you know, after maybe five minutes

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of just me floundering, like.

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Um, you know, and then being at school,
the norm was a direct contradiction

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to that state of being, it was very
formalist, fixist and supremacist as well.

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Like the standard model of the native
was designed to be a direct projection

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of me as a human and then challenging
the norm of why does it only have to be

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a monolingual model or a bilingual model?

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And how can we intersperse the natural
flow of people coming in that come

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from different cultural legacies
and make it so that you don't have

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to teach my language for it to be
incased within your institution.

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Like there's so much more
that can be ingrained.

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So that's how I came into this.

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Like the shortened story.

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Hedvig Sandbu: Oh, wow.

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I mean, it's just, it's wonderful
to hear an example of,  a family

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where all of you sort of really
embrace this multilingualism and

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that, uh, what did you call it?

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The sort of disruptive energy almost, of
breaking down those stereotypes or the

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formality, as you said that you had in
school, and just playing with languages,

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not really caring about comprehension,
even, so much as just, well, let's

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try and communicate in some way.

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I'm wondering  what do you feel was the
benefit of having that from an early age?

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Chesline PP: Well, I would say to me,
the benefits of that is my default

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is not a monolith, which is to say
in many regards that my expectation

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for engagement was you don't have to
speak in a way that reinforces my norm.

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I was used to having asymetrical
conversations: I speak to her in French.

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She respond to me in either
English, Spanish, or Haitian Creole.

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That was one thing.

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Then around accents, understanding
that everybody has an

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accent, it's your vocal DNA.

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They don't carry the same
privilege within society because.

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It's an exclusionary construct, right?

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So people get rejected and you're
perceived as "less than", less

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intelligent, irrelevant, or legitimate,
but it has nothing to do with you.

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It has to do with the systems
that are  preset and preformalised

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before you come into it.

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And then the question is, am I
going to negotiate my legitimacy

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with something that is not of me?

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And when I decided that the answer
is no, I become the agent of

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potentialities,  and of disruption
and a beauteousness and an expansion.

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My default was, my standard of
operations for even thinking about

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the fabric of words, it's so much
more enriched than, than the format

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that you know was imposed or imparted.

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So I would say that's the thing.

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And for me, you know, when I look at
pluralism as part of languages, it only

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carries benefits The gift that, you
know, as Lisa Nichols calls it, like

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the gift wrapped in sandpaper for me
was my parents purposefully made it

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so that I didn't speak my language.

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That is my native Afro-Indigenous
language and that, you know, made

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it so that I was, you know, looked
at from different communities as

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always incongruent, insufficient,
problematic, and non-conforming, right.

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So, um, you're not black enough,
you're too white or you're not

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white enough, or you're not Canadian
enough or you're not Montrealer

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enough or whatever the case was.

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But the gift in that when you
re-emerge on the other side of

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that tension is I self-taught
myself a language, all of my own.

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And I can read and write in
ways that my parents who were

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born in the country can not.

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And the gift of being denied and resisted
is intentionality and expertise, which

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is to say that I'm much more granular.

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I have done my research.

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I've done the work and I
embody that so much different

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because I chose the language.

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I created a privilege for myself to
have that level of masterfulness and

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self-sufficiency, and I speak in a way
that is very proper to my identity.

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And so those are the gifts as Lisa
Nichols says wrapped in sandpaper,

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but it's the opposite of, you know,
um, a struggle or something negative.

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So, um, yeah, that would
be my journey there.

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Hedvig Sandbu: Wow.

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I love that.

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And what you said about  the fact that
you hadn't learnt Haitian Creole until you

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were much more deliberate about learning
it, and you kind of owned the learning

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process for yourself and you decided you
kind of created the way of expressing

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yourself in Haitian Creole that was
fitting to your identity is beautiful.

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And I think a lot of people resonate with
that, that fact that when you're learning

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a new language, you're actually having
an opportunity to reinvent yourself or

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to, I'm not sure if it's reinvent or just
to, um, express yourself better, maybe

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express your identity in a better way.

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So you you've talked about how
you,  you've learnt a number of

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languages at home, and then you've
learned Haitian-Creole by yourself.

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And you've told me that you didn't
learn these through actually

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traveling to Haiti or, you know,
actually going to these places.

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So can you tell me a little bit about,
about that and why that's so important.

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Chesline PP: Totally because, you know,
there's so many rampant misconstruals

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that are entertained by the polyglot
community as an industry as, as, um,

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as a club or, you know, as a reality.

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And for me, If we produce a one-way model
for all, it means that we incapacitate

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others, or we limit accessibility
around people gaining access to,

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you know, fluency all of their own.

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And it doesn't work for everybody.

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Not everybody wants to travel or has
the material needs,   to travel abroad.

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Um, so for me, it was really
important to challenge the

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narrative around, "oh, you have to".

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And what immersion looks like?

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So in my case, you know, I consider
that I self-taught myself all my

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languages and I went to school to get
my papers, um, so that I can have an

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extension of credibility that would
force people to let me in, have my foot

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in the door and then do my own thing.

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And how I did that was,  I always
rehash let's say the the core process

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because it works so well for me.

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And then I re implement
optimizing strategies over time

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because we mature into this.

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Um, and we're more knowledgeable
and we create and think

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and learn our way through.

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But my soul sister, Lina Vasquez,
you know, she, um, starts with,

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"do you know how you learn?"

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And most people don't and then they
would fault the language learning process

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as, oh, I'm not meant to be a learner.

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But the truest thing is you
don't know how you learn, period.

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So it doesn't matter if you're
trying to learn language or quantum

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mechanics, you will always have.

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Uh, a deficit ingrained in your
processes that is self engineered.

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So to me, it went back to how
do you normally, you know, think

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and how do you process knowledge?

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That was my starting point because the
whole thing is it has to be organic to me.

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A lot of the time we try to enforce
upon ourselves practices that

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are wholly disconnecting from our
truest organic, you know, um, you

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know, capacity to be, integrate,

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and re-engineer knowledge and
that's why  languages don't stick.

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So the way that I learn when I
was looking back to that, okay.

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Taking a minute, um, I have a few
different things, so I need to repeat

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over and over again, especially writing.

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And it's proven that writing
is terrific as, you know, uh,

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retention of data and knowledge.

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Okay, That was one thing.

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I need to talk to myself.

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To talk to myself out loud a lot.

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Okay.

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That's another thing.

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And let's say the way that I function is I
always go extremely granular and specific,

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and I always used a construction, so
I can have one sentence, very short

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and sweet, and I may break it apart.

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And I look for the pronouns,
the nouns, the adjectives.

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And then I look at how can I
put a different spin on it?

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Okay.

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So I can say, well, so I integrate
all the synonyms that I know.

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I play around with the sentence structure.

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I change the emphasis on different parts
of the construct on a sentential level.

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I play it, you know, so that I break it
apart, piece it apart I can reconstruct

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- deconstruct, so I become a master of
the units of the words, which is to say

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that I don't need a lot of content to be
extremely generative with my sentences.

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So if all I have are five words
I can spend those five words so

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well that I can generate maybe a
hundred sentences out of five words.

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Most people won't do that.

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Right?

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So the, they look at knowledge as a
quantification process, but they don't

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understand that it's about the infinite
combinations that you can engineer

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out of the minimum viable units.

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So that was my construct.

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This way, I don't need a
lot of sentences or content.

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I don't overwhelm myself, and I
become uber specialized in how

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I can recalibrate tactically and
optimally my own learning processes.

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I also learned that I need to
walk around the room, especially

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when I get excited learning.

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00:14:36,114 --> 00:14:40,554
And then I look at how can I take the
different parts and pieces of my organic,

218
00:14:41,004 --> 00:14:45,914
um, you know, self knowledge capabilities,
hone them in into a sequence.

219
00:14:46,179 --> 00:14:50,139
And then every day I just re-implement
the sequence because you want to take

220
00:14:50,139 --> 00:14:53,139
out having to think into the equation.

221
00:14:53,739 --> 00:14:57,849
Every decision making process on the
micro level is time - energy consuming.

222
00:14:58,029 --> 00:15:01,539
And by the time that you actually start
doing the learning, you're already

223
00:15:01,539 --> 00:15:03,729
depleted or challenged energetically.

224
00:15:04,104 --> 00:15:06,534
So you take a minute to
understand how you learn.

225
00:15:06,754 --> 00:15:10,164
You re sequence, those different
elements into a streamlined

226
00:15:10,164 --> 00:15:12,144
system, very short and sweet.

227
00:15:12,564 --> 00:15:15,984
And then you look at every day,
you're just going to be reinforcing

228
00:15:15,984 --> 00:15:17,934
that over and over again.

229
00:15:17,934 --> 00:15:19,764
And you're going to hone it as you go.

230
00:15:19,824 --> 00:15:22,074
Then at the end of my week,
I have my post-mortem.

231
00:15:22,344 --> 00:15:24,474
What worked, what didn't,
where did I feel like bleh?

232
00:15:25,224 --> 00:15:26,274
Where was I "oh my God.

233
00:15:26,274 --> 00:15:27,054
So excited".

234
00:15:27,084 --> 00:15:30,024
And I look at the mechanics of
the variables that were at play,

235
00:15:30,204 --> 00:15:33,414
maybe as the time of the day when
I did that, and so on and so forth.

236
00:15:33,789 --> 00:15:36,309
So practically, I looked at that.

237
00:15:36,369 --> 00:15:40,859
And I find the one resource that I call
my Bible and I may have two of them.

238
00:15:40,859 --> 00:15:46,409
So the first one would be the grammar
essentials I've used McGraw Hill, and it's

239
00:15:46,409 --> 00:15:51,389
not as well developed for all languages,
but for Italian, oh my goodness.

240
00:15:51,479 --> 00:15:52,619
It's my favorite auto.

241
00:15:52,919 --> 00:15:54,929
And I've used it so much that it's broken.

242
00:15:54,929 --> 00:15:56,819
Like the cover page is ripped off.

243
00:15:57,239 --> 00:16:01,439
And so it's a one it's a pocket
size and literally pocket size,

244
00:16:01,879 --> 00:16:03,969
uh, "grammar Bible", in English.

245
00:16:03,989 --> 00:16:06,959
So it explains that language to
you in English, you have the two

246
00:16:06,959 --> 00:16:10,949
Italian examples and you have no
exercises, which is why it's so light.

247
00:16:11,579 --> 00:16:16,549
So I, what I did was overview in my
overview, I highlight the notions that I'm

248
00:16:16,849 --> 00:16:21,449
iffy about, oh, maybe it's that kind of
verbs for this and that, because I want

249
00:16:21,449 --> 00:16:23,549
to look at it from a macro perspective.

250
00:16:23,729 --> 00:16:26,729
And when I get micro, I'm intentional
about the parts that I need to

251
00:16:26,729 --> 00:16:31,759
leverage more because there's more
resistance in my knowledge retention.

252
00:16:32,609 --> 00:16:36,449
And then, um, I had
that holistic approach.

253
00:16:36,689 --> 00:16:37,109
Right.

254
00:16:37,319 --> 00:16:39,329
And then I will go, okay,
what gets me excited?

255
00:16:39,329 --> 00:16:40,529
For me, it's richness.

256
00:16:40,619 --> 00:16:44,339
I want to have more than one way to
see something or else I get frustrated.

257
00:16:44,819 --> 00:16:48,449
So I would look at, put on the
timer one minute and I just talk to

258
00:16:48,449 --> 00:16:51,719
myself in the language and I would
just write down, really quickly,

259
00:16:51,719 --> 00:16:52,709
the words that I don't know.

260
00:16:53,219 --> 00:16:56,219
What the thing is, I keep
talking in the language.

261
00:16:56,249 --> 00:16:58,119
I just have to find a workaround.

262
00:16:58,369 --> 00:17:01,004
So, if I forgot a how to say
chair, I'm going to say "the thing

263
00:17:01,004 --> 00:17:02,774
that I sit on" in the language.

264
00:17:02,894 --> 00:17:06,554
You don't break your flow, but I just
think two seconds short hand style.

265
00:17:06,704 --> 00:17:07,064
Okay.

266
00:17:07,094 --> 00:17:08,894
That's the word I didn't
know, but I keep moving.

267
00:17:09,144 --> 00:17:09,914
Timer is up.

268
00:17:10,094 --> 00:17:12,074
I have a list and then
I'm going to look them up.

269
00:17:12,104 --> 00:17:16,304
Before I look them up, I challenge
myself to say, okay, based on the

270
00:17:16,304 --> 00:17:21,354
information I have, my appreciation of
the logics,  the logic of that language.

271
00:17:21,654 --> 00:17:24,294
What can I anticipate
the answer would be like.

272
00:17:25,044 --> 00:17:29,934
Because you want to challenge yourself to
be autonomous and not resources dependent.

273
00:17:30,204 --> 00:17:33,864
By the time that I lend into my
dictionary, I am cross referencing,

274
00:17:34,104 --> 00:17:38,904
fact checking, but I already had a
baseline to just have information

275
00:17:38,904 --> 00:17:41,154
to validate or invalidate.

276
00:17:41,664 --> 00:17:44,154
And that's how I would pull
myself over and over again.

277
00:17:44,154 --> 00:17:48,114
And then you become intuitive by the
time that I opened up my tab, I already

278
00:17:48,114 --> 00:17:50,634
have 85% of the answer locked in.

279
00:17:51,369 --> 00:17:54,069
So those would be the sessions
where I would be tactical,

280
00:17:54,069 --> 00:17:55,749
intentional and research-driven.

281
00:17:56,019 --> 00:17:58,449
The rest of the time, I'm just
playing around with language and

282
00:17:58,449 --> 00:18:00,039
being silly and being grounded.

283
00:18:00,039 --> 00:18:04,089
So now I journal every mornings
in,  my three languages that

284
00:18:04,089 --> 00:18:06,069
I'm honing in and it's fun.

285
00:18:06,129 --> 00:18:08,349
It's grounding, it's
healing, It's liberating.

286
00:18:08,379 --> 00:18:09,339
I have my candles.

287
00:18:09,339 --> 00:18:13,709
I  have a whole ritual, but I wanted
it to be holistic, I wanted it

288
00:18:13,709 --> 00:18:15,539
to be organic and tethered to me.

289
00:18:15,569 --> 00:18:17,279
And I want it to be life-affirming.

290
00:18:17,519 --> 00:18:20,879
I don't want to wake up to that
and to dread the session that I

291
00:18:20,879 --> 00:18:22,649
have to open up my language books.

292
00:18:23,119 --> 00:18:24,749
It needs to be invigorating.

293
00:18:25,079 --> 00:18:28,019
And so you start with you,
how do you learn and function?

294
00:18:28,229 --> 00:18:31,709
So that then all you're doing is
you're normalizing the language

295
00:18:31,709 --> 00:18:35,729
learning experience into the
constitution of your, your functioning.

296
00:18:36,683 --> 00:18:41,123
So for me, it starts from the unit of you
as the centre, the grounding force and the

297
00:18:41,123 --> 00:18:46,643
baseline, and then naturally make language
cohesive within what you naturally do.

298
00:18:47,933 --> 00:18:52,163
Hedvig Sandbu: What do you say
to someone who says "I'm not

299
00:18:52,373 --> 00:18:53,903
good at learning languages?"

300
00:18:54,983 --> 00:18:56,363
Chesline PP: Oh, there's so many things.

301
00:18:56,393 --> 00:19:00,083
Um, I always start with  Lina's
(Vasquez)"do you know how you learn?"

302
00:19:01,193 --> 00:19:04,143
And usually that's just a
mic drop in crickets moment.

303
00:19:04,163 --> 00:19:04,433
Right.

304
00:19:04,463 --> 00:19:05,273
All at once.

305
00:19:05,873 --> 00:19:11,423
And then looking at, you know, what are
things that you've been successful at in

306
00:19:11,423 --> 00:19:17,948
your life learning wise and what were the,
you know, backend implementation processes

307
00:19:17,948 --> 00:19:19,628
that led you to a level of mastery?

308
00:19:20,838 --> 00:19:25,998
So based on whatever they tell me,
we start architecting, you know,

309
00:19:26,028 --> 00:19:30,858
this kind of matrix where now we can
map out your thought processes and

310
00:19:30,858 --> 00:19:35,178
then look at language as something
that can be super imposed onto your

311
00:19:35,178 --> 00:19:40,533
own, um, you know, self-knowledge,
instinct or intelligence or acumen.

312
00:19:40,953 --> 00:19:45,303
Then the other thing is we want a shift
in language to have a shift in perception,

313
00:19:45,513 --> 00:19:51,183
because if you are emerging out of self
defeatism, you are going to re articulate

314
00:19:51,183 --> 00:19:53,363
the reality that your thought induces.

315
00:19:53,703 --> 00:19:57,483
So if you come in from a deficit
driven narrative, you will look for

316
00:19:57,483 --> 00:20:02,333
opportunities to then reinforce the
statement that you are not good.

317
00:20:02,333 --> 00:20:04,638
And so it's challenging
the notion of good.

318
00:20:04,638 --> 00:20:07,278
What does it mean to be
good or bad at language?

319
00:20:07,518 --> 00:20:11,388
Often times what emerges is
you want to speak like a quote

320
00:20:11,388 --> 00:20:12,708
unquote "native speaker".

321
00:20:12,708 --> 00:20:14,178
So you want to be assimilated.

322
00:20:14,538 --> 00:20:19,608
You don't look at your previous linguistic
background as an enrichment to the

323
00:20:19,608 --> 00:20:21,408
new languages that you're integrating.

324
00:20:21,438 --> 00:20:25,308
And you look at everything that
makes you idiosynchratically unique,

325
00:20:25,548 --> 00:20:30,138
singular, remarkable, outstanding,
norm-defying, non-conforming

326
00:20:30,138 --> 00:20:31,498
you look at that as a handicap.

327
00:20:31,908 --> 00:20:33,588
And how can I obliterate that?

328
00:20:33,588 --> 00:20:38,868
How can I neutralize my linguistic
singularity so that I sound and behave

329
00:20:39,138 --> 00:20:41,468
like somebody who ultimately is in me.

330
00:20:41,928 --> 00:20:43,818
So it's challenging that notion as well.

331
00:20:44,208 --> 00:20:46,488
And then we look at,
okay, what are you doing?

332
00:20:47,268 --> 00:20:47,928
Talk to me.

333
00:20:48,018 --> 00:20:50,748
I want to hear you and listen
to you in the language.

334
00:20:50,808 --> 00:20:52,818
Then I have my re-framings for you.

335
00:20:53,118 --> 00:20:55,758
And I tell you, you're
doing this beautifully.

336
00:20:55,818 --> 00:20:58,428
And then we're going to look at the
things that we want to hone in on.

337
00:20:58,758 --> 00:21:00,618
But again, language is a big part of it.

338
00:21:01,428 --> 00:21:05,208
So it's challenging your standard, your
standard for linguistic excellence.

339
00:21:05,418 --> 00:21:10,188
If it is something that defeats you, if
it is something that crushes you, it's

340
00:21:10,188 --> 00:21:15,978
not a standard that you want to, you know,
you want to articulate within your life.

341
00:21:16,368 --> 00:21:17,448
It's not serving you.

342
00:21:18,168 --> 00:21:22,398
So I would say it's a combination of those
things, but there was no such a thing as a

343
00:21:22,398 --> 00:21:27,838
bad learner , a bad speaker, there's just
a learner who doesn't know how they learn.

344
00:21:28,178 --> 00:21:30,728
And you just go back down to
that level of understanding.

345
00:21:30,728 --> 00:21:35,048
If you're trying to learn the language
like I do, you're challenging yourself.

346
00:21:35,408 --> 00:21:37,388
So let's focus on, on you instead.

347
00:21:38,078 --> 00:21:39,098
Hedvig Sandbu: That's wonderful.

348
00:21:39,428 --> 00:21:45,438
Um, I want to move on to, um, what
we discussed just very early on,  in

349
00:21:45,438 --> 00:21:46,818
our conversation, which was around.

350
00:21:47,498 --> 00:21:52,568
Um, kind of your heritage language or
languages actually in your case, right?

351
00:21:52,968 --> 00:21:56,568
In your family, you have different
languages that you grew up with, and of

352
00:21:56,568 --> 00:22:01,338
course, uh, Haitian Creole, which you,
in fact, didn't learn from an early

353
00:22:01,338 --> 00:22:03,498
age and then reconnected with later on.

354
00:22:04,291 --> 00:22:07,311
What was the trigger for you to
start learning Haitian Creole?

355
00:22:08,851 --> 00:22:11,831
Chesline PP: I would say was
always something in the backdrop.

356
00:22:11,891 --> 00:22:15,581
For instance, I would understand
perfectly people talking to me.

357
00:22:16,031 --> 00:22:19,661
Um, but I was never
seen as Haitian enough.

358
00:22:20,111 --> 00:22:24,886
I was looked at as a mimicry
of legitimacy in the community.

359
00:22:25,246 --> 00:22:29,266
And that's the same in what I would
call like white America as well,

360
00:22:29,296 --> 00:22:32,866
being around, first question out of
people's mouth is where are you from?

361
00:22:33,286 --> 00:22:38,476
And then the segue to that is more
invalidating than the first postulate.

362
00:22:38,836 --> 00:22:43,396
So the thing was, I never had a
space where I belonged, I was seen

363
00:22:43,396 --> 00:22:48,916
as incomplete, as disruptively
and disempoweringly nonconforming.

364
00:22:49,186 --> 00:22:52,666
I was seeing as illegitimate,
so that was my story.

365
00:22:53,176 --> 00:22:57,616
I always wanted to speak, but
then I got castigated for it.

366
00:22:57,916 --> 00:23:01,006
So people calling me out on
my accent, calling me out.

367
00:23:01,066 --> 00:23:05,236
Um, oh, you speak poorly and yada, yada,
I'm talking about Haitian Creole now.

368
00:23:05,846 --> 00:23:10,186
And so I would, you know,
speak to myself on some level.

369
00:23:10,696 --> 00:23:12,406
Uh, but I was being guarded about it.

370
00:23:12,496 --> 00:23:16,486
And I would also speak with other
cousins who were in the same situation.

371
00:23:16,486 --> 00:23:20,086
Cause cousins who came from Haiti,
had exactly the same discourse, right.

372
00:23:20,086 --> 00:23:23,206
They're raised by those people who
would talk to me in such a way.

373
00:23:23,626 --> 00:23:27,676
So the thing was languages
became my secret garden.

374
00:23:28,476 --> 00:23:32,506
It's a thing that I internalized
and in my, you know, fictionalized

375
00:23:32,506 --> 00:23:34,546
world that I carried within myself.

376
00:23:35,186 --> 00:23:37,646
There was no judgment and
there was no language police.

377
00:23:37,646 --> 00:23:39,326
There were no gatekeepers.

378
00:23:39,956 --> 00:23:44,816
And an extension of that was when
I went to my path of languages.

379
00:23:45,026 --> 00:23:49,136
I chose English because the people in
my household didn't speak the language.

380
00:23:49,376 --> 00:23:53,336
So I had something to hold on
to that was intrinsically mine.

381
00:23:53,672 --> 00:23:58,322
And then I got that express, um,
experience of, of liberation, of

382
00:23:58,322 --> 00:24:02,582
self proclamation, and then I carried
that back into Haitian Creole.

383
00:24:02,762 --> 00:24:06,302
Cause by that time I had already
learned a few, three languages,

384
00:24:06,302 --> 00:24:07,742
three, four, something like that.

385
00:24:08,072 --> 00:24:12,512
And I go, well, now that I know what
liberation and self-determining looks like

386
00:24:13,112 --> 00:24:18,242
I get to reappropriate the same emotional
metrics back into your Haitian Creole.

387
00:24:18,632 --> 00:24:22,052
And that's where I really started having
fun with the language because I was no

388
00:24:22,052 --> 00:24:23,942
longer trying to speak like my parents.

389
00:24:24,372 --> 00:24:30,332
I was no longer trying to be an emulator
of a norm that was, you know, rejecting,

390
00:24:30,332 --> 00:24:34,682
contradicting of me, but also ultimately
not of my own design and purpose.

391
00:24:35,012 --> 00:24:39,162
And  you know, when you learn different
grammar styles,   your sentences,

392
00:24:39,612 --> 00:24:43,122
they started behaving different
because I have different models.

393
00:24:43,362 --> 00:24:47,232
And so with German, with Italian and all.

394
00:24:47,232 --> 00:24:51,532
So then I would have all those different
ways of playing around with, you

395
00:24:51,532 --> 00:24:56,547
know, uh, syntax, with lexicon, with
deconstruction, with understanding,

396
00:24:56,967 --> 00:24:58,947
um, how you can have a unit.

397
00:24:58,947 --> 00:25:02,967
So talking about, uh, morphological
derivation, so you have one word

398
00:25:03,237 --> 00:25:06,747
and then you can make it an adverb
an adjective a noun, this and that.

399
00:25:06,927 --> 00:25:11,997
So I have all that toolkit by the time
that I re engaged, um, Haitian Creole

400
00:25:12,017 --> 00:25:17,367
from a place of determining, empowerment,
daring, and being very grounded.

401
00:25:17,697 --> 00:25:22,782
And that's when I really,  uh,
exploded into expansion.

402
00:25:23,112 --> 00:25:26,532
So that's how I got to that
place with the language.

403
00:25:26,562 --> 00:25:32,112
And now when I speak it as a gift
to myself, I would, I do poetry

404
00:25:32,112 --> 00:25:35,922
work in the language, and it's
extremely unintelligible if you

405
00:25:35,982 --> 00:25:37,902
speak French, because if you think

406
00:25:37,932 --> 00:25:41,052
oh, is a Haitian Creole is like
French, like, no, honey, it's not.

407
00:25:41,052 --> 00:25:45,552
So part of my decolonization process
is I go and I do research on the

408
00:25:45,552 --> 00:25:50,262
Afro indigenous roots and I use
words from our indigenous roots and

409
00:25:50,352 --> 00:25:52,302
the Pan-Africanism of the language.

410
00:25:52,602 --> 00:25:56,712
So those are things that three
to four, five generations ago, my

411
00:25:56,802 --> 00:26:01,729
4, 4, 4 grandparents used to say,
but in 2021,  we're losing that,

412
00:26:01,759 --> 00:26:03,499
particularly in urban centers.

413
00:26:03,799 --> 00:26:09,679
So I created the reverse imagery of
being so empowered within the language

414
00:26:09,679 --> 00:26:14,584
itself that I speak something that
is of my ancestry, but not of the

415
00:26:14,614 --> 00:26:16,834
contemporary world that denied me.

416
00:26:18,814 --> 00:26:19,744
Hedvig Sandbu: That's awesome.

417
00:26:19,824 --> 00:26:23,694
What I was going to ask you, but I think
you kind of answered is, you know, how

418
00:26:23,694 --> 00:26:26,244
did you come out of that secret garden?

419
00:26:26,274 --> 00:26:28,364
But it sounds as though you.

420
00:26:29,394 --> 00:26:34,854
You, you almost took a detour to these
other languages, but do you think you

421
00:26:34,854 --> 00:26:39,984
would have been able to come out of that
shell if you will, with Haitian Creole,

422
00:26:40,464 --> 00:26:47,694
if you hadn't learned other languages and
kind of, um, figured out a few new ways

423
00:26:47,694 --> 00:26:49,194
of being more creative with the language?

424
00:26:50,799 --> 00:26:57,279
Chesline PP: For me, like the second
you get into like two or three more

425
00:26:57,279 --> 00:27:03,669
language you already have, and you really
hone in on their singularities and how

426
00:27:03,669 --> 00:27:05,579
you  decolonise them and all that stuff.

427
00:27:06,689 --> 00:27:09,539
Um, it's an enrichment that
you can never uncreate.

428
00:27:09,539 --> 00:27:10,079
You know what I mean?

429
00:27:10,079 --> 00:27:14,519
So I feel that when you embody
your languages, so intentfully

430
00:27:14,579 --> 00:27:18,659
and holistically, there's no
element of separation between them.

431
00:27:19,409 --> 00:27:22,909
And for me, the purpose is I want
them to keep on being, inter-

432
00:27:22,929 --> 00:27:26,659
communicating, and I want them to
keep on transmogrifying each other.

433
00:27:26,984 --> 00:27:31,904
So the sequence of itself to me
is of no relevance in so much as

434
00:27:31,904 --> 00:27:33,524
there is a sequence to start with.

435
00:27:34,124 --> 00:27:38,264
I always want there to be something
disruptive that signifies that

436
00:27:38,264 --> 00:27:41,954
I'm not here to rehash norms
I'm here to create paradigms.

437
00:27:42,314 --> 00:27:46,974
And I do so because I don't settle
for the typically program-normative

438
00:27:46,994 --> 00:27:50,774
sentence structure or the language
ideology that comes with it.

439
00:27:51,174 --> 00:27:54,054
So for me, it's by default.

440
00:27:54,074 --> 00:27:57,554
Now, when you truly embodied
you do the healing, you do,

441
00:27:57,644 --> 00:27:59,564
um, your meditation practices.

442
00:27:59,564 --> 00:28:02,444
You do your journaling, you work
in those different languages.

443
00:28:02,444 --> 00:28:05,394
There's an element where there
is no differentiation for you.

444
00:28:05,804 --> 00:28:09,389
And that means that whether or not
I carry awareness of that fact,

445
00:28:09,629 --> 00:28:13,679
when I iterate sentences in Haitian
Creole, there are elements that

446
00:28:13,679 --> 00:28:17,669
if you deconstruct that from a
psycholinguistic level, you can see here,

447
00:28:17,699 --> 00:28:21,659
oh, that's the touch points actually,
between those two languages here.

448
00:28:21,749 --> 00:28:25,049
The reason why you created that
kind of sentence structure is

449
00:28:25,049 --> 00:28:26,669
because you speak German, you know?

450
00:28:27,059 --> 00:28:31,289
Um, so, so that's where I want
to have this flow, this wholeism

451
00:28:31,769 --> 00:28:35,564
that centers and grounds how I am
and I do language on the daily.

452
00:28:37,294 --> 00:28:39,634
Hedvig Sandbu: So, is that what
you mean when you say, because I

453
00:28:39,634 --> 00:28:44,544
think a term that's new to me is
kind of deconstructing a language.

454
00:28:44,874 --> 00:28:47,904
Often when we talk about learning a
language we - we're talking about.

455
00:28:48,874 --> 00:28:50,944
Uh, maybe constructing, right?

456
00:28:50,944 --> 00:28:53,164
So sentence construction.

457
00:28:53,534 --> 00:28:55,214
About kind of building things.

458
00:28:55,874 --> 00:29:00,794
So I know you mentioned, you mentioned
healing, you mentioned journaling, you

459
00:29:00,794 --> 00:29:07,859
mentioned, um, embodiment, um,  what
does that process look like when

460
00:29:07,859 --> 00:29:10,859
you are deconstructing a language?

461
00:29:11,624 --> 00:29:13,134
Chesline PP: Um, I can
give you an example.

462
00:29:13,134 --> 00:29:13,554
So

463
00:29:14,024 --> 00:29:14,734
Hedvig Sandbu: Yes, please.

464
00:29:14,734 --> 00:29:17,594
Chesline PP: the people listening won't
see it, but I have my little journal here.

465
00:29:17,594 --> 00:29:21,584
So this is my, one of my
most precious possessions.

466
00:29:21,914 --> 00:29:22,844
And it's very simple.

467
00:29:22,844 --> 00:29:26,264
It's a beautiful book,
basically a notebook.

468
00:29:26,444 --> 00:29:29,234
And in it you have a bunch of words
that I wrote down in Haitian Creole,

469
00:29:29,254 --> 00:29:32,144
so that's one of the first things
I do when I wake up in the morning.

470
00:29:32,624 --> 00:29:35,594
And what I did was, um,
I'm special like that.

471
00:29:35,624 --> 00:29:39,194
One of my favourite
books are dictionaries.

472
00:29:39,524 --> 00:29:44,684
So I found when I made the best
online dictionaries for Haitian

473
00:29:44,684 --> 00:29:48,104
Creole and I took him in it, as I was
telling you before, what are all the

474
00:29:48,104 --> 00:29:49,374
words that I don't know how to say.

475
00:29:50,064 --> 00:29:52,964
And what are other words that I
know how to say, but I have only

476
00:29:52,964 --> 00:29:55,604
one synonym for, or not even that.

477
00:29:55,994 --> 00:29:59,684
So for me, it's looking at where am I
stuck, limited, unimaginative and non

478
00:29:59,684 --> 00:30:03,494
generative with the words that I have,
and I don't have, and I would sit down,

479
00:30:03,494 --> 00:30:06,524
I do my research and I just pulled
them all up and then I write them down

480
00:30:06,944 --> 00:30:08,954
and then I start noticing patterns.

481
00:30:09,014 --> 00:30:13,709
It's like, I didn't know that you
can generate out of a verb, this

482
00:30:13,709 --> 00:30:16,949
type of, of nouns, which means
that now I can overextend that

483
00:30:16,949 --> 00:30:18,239
to all the nouns that I know.

484
00:30:18,539 --> 00:30:22,349
So automatically I double the
amounts of vocabulary that I have,

485
00:30:22,379 --> 00:30:25,889
because all those words that exist
in one category, all those nouns.

486
00:30:26,099 --> 00:30:28,739
Now they have the potential
to become two extensions and

487
00:30:28,739 --> 00:30:30,089
the same original construct.

488
00:30:30,209 --> 00:30:30,539
Right?

489
00:30:30,839 --> 00:30:34,559
So that's how you look at deconstruction
is you look again at the minimum

490
00:30:34,589 --> 00:30:40,619
viable unit, the one word, how can
I engineer 10 words out of the one.

491
00:30:41,309 --> 00:30:46,769
So your main more intentional instead
of, oh, I need to have 10,000 words

492
00:30:46,769 --> 00:30:48,269
for me to be considered fluent.

493
00:30:48,299 --> 00:30:48,599
No.

494
00:30:49,079 --> 00:30:53,129
It's out of the vacuum, out of
nothingness, out of no access to

495
00:30:53,189 --> 00:30:58,409
internet or something that is extrinsic
to your body as a resource, how can

496
00:30:58,409 --> 00:31:03,959
you basically extensively create more
words for and within that language?

497
00:31:04,559 --> 00:31:08,399
So at both, it goes down to that
level of critical, um, you know,

498
00:31:08,399 --> 00:31:11,399
system awareness of grammar as a code.

499
00:31:11,609 --> 00:31:13,469
It's a system, it's a matrix.

500
00:31:13,709 --> 00:31:17,249
And so it means that there's an ingrained
logic that creates predictability

501
00:31:17,249 --> 00:31:19,019
in pattern making and creation.

502
00:31:19,259 --> 00:31:24,179
So if I understand the logic of that
pattern, I can create more out of

503
00:31:24,179 --> 00:31:27,809
it and I can become autonomous and
fluent and then create new words.

504
00:31:28,356 --> 00:31:29,927
Like now we use "I Google".

505
00:31:30,227 --> 00:31:33,497
Google is used as a verb now,
but it used to be just a noun.

506
00:31:33,837 --> 00:31:38,787
So it's just this capacity to create
new words that people will automatically

507
00:31:38,787 --> 00:31:44,487
understand, but it's out of richness,
creativity, um, and you know, this

508
00:31:44,487 --> 00:31:47,487
kind of, um, imagination that you have.

509
00:31:47,787 --> 00:31:50,607
So for me, I would sit
down and have those words.

510
00:31:50,637 --> 00:31:52,737
And then I look at what
are the patterns here?

511
00:31:53,247 --> 00:31:55,257
How can I play around with this word?

512
00:31:55,257 --> 00:32:00,037
So I have more than one way to use
it, and that's been slowing down.

513
00:32:00,847 --> 00:32:05,137
Looking at the bulk of the words
that you have as part of your

514
00:32:05,137 --> 00:32:06,907
living repository of knowledge.

515
00:32:07,267 --> 00:32:11,527
And then again, the idea is you
want to multiply that resource.

516
00:32:12,277 --> 00:32:15,397
So that's how I would look at
that level of deconstruction.

517
00:32:15,397 --> 00:32:18,487
And another thing I love
doing is creating registers.

518
00:32:18,697 --> 00:32:20,067
So I have one sentence.

519
00:32:20,362 --> 00:32:25,882
How can I say exactly the same thing, but
politely, informally, in a verbal manner,

520
00:32:25,952 --> 00:32:27,972
in a provocative and a sarcastic one.

521
00:32:27,972 --> 00:32:31,672
So again, it's the challenge
of being a generator out of

522
00:32:31,672 --> 00:32:33,622
the singularity of a unit.

523
00:32:35,442 --> 00:32:36,312
Hedvig Sandbu: That's amazing.

524
00:32:36,312 --> 00:32:38,892
Do you have an example that
you could share with us?

525
00:32:39,922 --> 00:32:40,312
Chesline PP: Sure.

526
00:32:40,312 --> 00:32:45,652
I mean, um, it could be,  if I
want to say, um, "I love this".

527
00:32:45,742 --> 00:32:46,702
Let's keep it at that.

528
00:32:46,702 --> 00:32:48,832
So that's the, the unit
that I'm working from.

529
00:32:48,832 --> 00:32:54,142
So I can say, um, you know, "this I
love", so already that inversion, but

530
00:32:54,142 --> 00:32:56,512
then rationalizing back to myself.

531
00:32:56,512 --> 00:32:58,042
What is the significance in that?

532
00:32:58,042 --> 00:33:01,852
So objectively the same
amount of words are there.

533
00:33:01,932 --> 00:33:07,872
What is then the change that is in
occurrence that I get to comprehend?

534
00:33:08,342 --> 00:33:12,902
Well, because those languages like
languages like English and French and what

535
00:33:12,902 --> 00:33:15,182
have you, you read from left to right.

536
00:33:15,692 --> 00:33:19,742
That the distribution of words
signifies the relevance of the

537
00:33:19,742 --> 00:33:21,422
words and the emphasis granted.

538
00:33:21,572 --> 00:33:23,522
Then now I'm going to go for a synonym.

539
00:33:23,522 --> 00:33:28,112
So I love, I adore, I cherish
and I will explain to myself

540
00:33:28,202 --> 00:33:29,732
all those variations in tones.

541
00:33:29,732 --> 00:33:30,982
What do the significance?

542
00:33:31,012 --> 00:33:32,502
So the six signifies.

543
00:33:32,502 --> 00:33:35,522
So bring it back down to
the original statement.

544
00:33:35,702 --> 00:33:41,042
How am I destroying, reinforcing, um,
contradicting, et cetera, et cetera.

545
00:33:41,042 --> 00:33:46,952
So having that acute level awareness
and acumen around the power of the word.

546
00:33:47,342 --> 00:33:51,182
So how am I creating a more empowering
statement out of the same thought?

547
00:33:51,392 --> 00:33:53,012
So those would be things that I do.

548
00:33:53,089 --> 00:33:56,359
And for me, another challenge
is, I don't want to repeat the

549
00:33:56,359 --> 00:33:58,009
same words over and over again.

550
00:33:58,339 --> 00:34:04,429
Thus, when I can find myself on the
cusp of reiteration, I pause and I

551
00:34:04,429 --> 00:34:10,519
go for generation rather than say
the same words and it's frustrating.

552
00:34:10,519 --> 00:34:13,729
And to me, it speaks to
a gap that I may have.

553
00:34:13,999 --> 00:34:18,769
And then when I look to what is a
reframer that I can induce around

554
00:34:18,769 --> 00:34:22,579
that construct, around that sentence,
that's when I go back to what I

555
00:34:22,579 --> 00:34:24,409
talked about before: patterns.

556
00:34:26,219 --> 00:34:30,619
Hedvig Sandbu: I'm reminded of in
Italian, how you canadd -ino or -one

557
00:34:31,149 --> 00:34:37,384
and -ino basically makes the noun the
thing smaller and -one makes it bigger.

558
00:34:38,914 --> 00:34:41,254
I think is just such a
beautiful and creative way.

559
00:34:41,414 --> 00:34:45,374
Chesline PP: I would say the thing
is the capacity for self regeneration

560
00:34:45,374 --> 00:34:47,714
exists in all languages, but
it's not going to look the same

561
00:34:47,714 --> 00:34:49,184
because they don't behave the same.

562
00:34:49,544 --> 00:34:53,384
So in English for me, it's,
especially with my verbs, you

563
00:34:53,384 --> 00:34:58,814
know, I can add I Z E at the end
and I turn and noun into a verb.

564
00:34:59,084 --> 00:35:04,214
So they won't always have the same,
you know, objective behavior, but the

565
00:35:04,274 --> 00:35:08,384
reproduce internally the same capacity
for the one word to then be multiplied.

566
00:35:09,604 --> 00:35:09,934
Hedvig Sandbu: Yeah.

567
00:35:09,994 --> 00:35:10,744
Yeah, it's true.

568
00:35:11,224 --> 00:35:11,584
Okay.

569
00:35:11,584 --> 00:35:15,214
I think we're actually coming
to the end of our interview.

570
00:35:15,814 --> 00:35:19,531
Do you have any, final
message for our listeners?

571
00:35:20,401 --> 00:35:21,451
Any final thoughts?

572
00:35:23,501 --> 00:35:23,861
Chesline PP: Yeah.

573
00:35:23,861 --> 00:35:28,451
Well, how can I summarize this?

574
00:35:28,451 --> 00:35:30,611
But I would say.

575
00:35:31,466 --> 00:35:36,056
Never presumed that there is a
dearth of richness in the language.

576
00:35:36,116 --> 00:35:41,666
So if you say that language is easier
or harder than, it means that we take

577
00:35:41,666 --> 00:35:46,226
two different languages that behave
differently, and we impose the standard

578
00:35:46,256 --> 00:35:47,816
of one language over the other.

579
00:35:48,326 --> 00:35:48,626
Right.

580
00:35:48,626 --> 00:35:49,376
So that's one thing.

581
00:35:49,376 --> 00:35:54,146
And it also means that because you stop
expecting beauty, you only encounter

582
00:35:55,181 --> 00:35:59,171
the opposite of that, you presume
that that language was inferior on

583
00:35:59,171 --> 00:36:01,961
some level, and then you started
treating it from that perspective.

584
00:36:01,961 --> 00:36:05,981
So now you're barring yourself off
of, from, you know, the richness that

585
00:36:05,981 --> 00:36:10,631
he can deploy, and all the different
iterations of linguistics that it carries.

586
00:36:11,111 --> 00:36:14,401
And that's something that then
gets reflected in how you speak.

587
00:36:15,011 --> 00:36:17,201
So just nurturing that humility.

588
00:36:17,951 --> 00:36:21,971
And it's also a tool of decolonization,
recognizing that, you know, all

589
00:36:21,971 --> 00:36:26,901
languages are equally sophisticated,
they just behave divergently, right.

590
00:36:26,901 --> 00:36:30,951
And it doesn't take anything away from
me just because it's not reminiscent

591
00:36:31,071 --> 00:36:33,351
of me as a norm, as a standard.

592
00:36:33,441 --> 00:36:37,431
It doesn't mean that it's lessened
or that it is inferiorizable.

593
00:36:37,731 --> 00:36:42,681
So I would just say that: don't
presume a lack of richness and

594
00:36:42,681 --> 00:36:46,131
depth and sophistication and that
their languages- have the humility

595
00:36:46,131 --> 00:36:50,841
to understand that um, they're all
equally self-supported, they're not

596
00:36:50,931 --> 00:36:53,901
all equally visiblised are legitimised.

597
00:36:55,366 --> 00:36:55,996
Hedvig Sandbu: Beautiful.

598
00:36:56,026 --> 00:36:59,116
All languages are rich
in their different ways.

599
00:36:59,441 --> 00:36:59,651
Chesline PP: Yeah,

600
00:37:00,286 --> 00:37:00,586
Hedvig Sandbu: Yeah.

601
00:37:00,976 --> 00:37:01,666
Wonderful.

602
00:37:02,086 --> 00:37:04,486
And how can our listeners find you?

603
00:37:04,922 --> 00:37:08,342
Chesline PP: Yeah, I would say
Instagram is my favorite place to be.

604
00:37:08,402 --> 00:37:15,962
Um, so it's just, uh Chesline PP, at C
H E S L I N E P P and then my website.

605
00:37:15,992 --> 00:37:19,712
So if you have one more in-depth
content interactions, um,

606
00:37:19,742 --> 00:37:20,972
that's where you can find me.

607
00:37:20,972 --> 00:37:25,442
And it's chesline.com,
C H E S L I N e.com.

608
00:37:27,109 --> 00:37:27,679
Hedvig Sandbu: Okay.

609
00:37:28,129 --> 00:37:31,369
If this interview resonated
with you, please go follow Ches.

610
00:37:31,489 --> 00:37:32,449
They are awesome.

611
00:37:33,019 --> 00:37:36,649
And final thing is a question for you.

612
00:37:37,069 --> 00:37:41,719
This one will be especially relevant to
you if you're thinking about this question

613
00:37:41,719 --> 00:37:43,349
of "what language should I learn?"

614
00:37:44,149 --> 00:37:48,829
I'd like to encourage you to consider
what a heritage language might be for you.

615
00:37:49,399 --> 00:37:52,579
It might not apply to you, but I
have a feeling it'll be relevant to

616
00:37:52,579 --> 00:37:54,439
more people than you might think.

617
00:37:54,829 --> 00:37:58,639
In the UK where I live, there
are 14 indigenous languages.

618
00:37:59,209 --> 00:38:02,959
Some of them have actually gone extinct
and then been revived through the

619
00:38:02,959 --> 00:38:06,409
efforts of people who wanted to connect
back with their history and the rich

620
00:38:06,439 --> 00:38:13,324
cultural heritage of languages like
Scots, Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Irish and

621
00:38:13,604 --> 00:38:15,334
others, there's literally 14 of them.

622
00:38:15,884 --> 00:38:20,244
I still can't wrap my head around that
because, being in the UK, there's this

623
00:38:20,424 --> 00:38:26,724
sense that everything is English and
that the English world is all there is,

624
00:38:26,754 --> 00:38:29,424
but there really is so much more to it.

625
00:38:29,999 --> 00:38:35,369
And remember that languages, as Ches said so beautifully are not

626
00:38:35,549 --> 00:38:37,919
inferior or superior to one another.

627
00:38:38,099 --> 00:38:41,669
And that means there really is no wrong language to learn.

Chesline Pierre-PaulProfile Photo

Chesline Pierre-Paul

As executive content contributor for Brainz Magazine, multi-award-winning storyteller, digital media activist, & Queer-E-O of a global digital transformation coaching & social impact consulting company, Ches works with global organizations, world leaders, as well as established & emerging entrepreneurs. They empower leaders & entrepreneurs within an expansive global coalition network to leverage their assets, platforms, goods, and brand within the spectrum of socially transformative leadership, in ways that spell out global impact, positive disruption, and innovation as healing and transformation. Their areas of focus are: personal development, global thought leadership, and social impact.