$re = '/(?<=\{)(?!\s*\{)[^{}]+/';
$str = '{ { "John", "ran" }, { "NOUN", "VERB" } },
{ { "The", "dog", "jumped"}, { "DET", "NOUN", "VERB" } },
{ { "Mike","lives","in","Poland"}, {"NOUN","VERB","DET","NOUN"} },';
preg_match_all($re, $str, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER, 0);
// Print the entire match result
var_dump($matches);
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php