How children learn language

How Children Learn Languages

Babies are born with the natural ability to learn languages

Introduction

Have you wondered why children as young as three can’t draw a circle, colour inside the lines, or tie their shoelaces but are so good at learning languages?

Language, the ultimate method of human communication through the conventional use of structured words, is a complex form of communication that is solely unique to us. Did you know a child can hear, mimic, explore, practice and finally learn a language within just three years?

All humans are born with the ability to learn a language. Some scholars argue the human brain has an innate ability to learn languages. All children acquire language at different rates yet most children follow a similar pattern regardless of what language it is.

Most parents believe language acquisition is a passive process but it’s actually an active process. This means that children don’t just acquire language from mimicking their parents or others around them. That is passive.

Instead, the language learning process is active, repetitive and complex. Some scholars, most notably Chomsky, argue there is a critical period for language acquisition. This is called the critical period hypothesis.

At birth, infants prefer their mother’s voice to other female voices, they prefer their parent’s language to other languages and they can differentiate between sounds and so they can differentiate between languages. They understand an English sentence doesn’t sound like a French sentence.

The Basic Stages of Language Development

There are 3 basic natural stages of language acquisition — we first learn sounds, then words and finally sentences.

How Children Learn Languages — the stages

Birth

As this stage, it is all about the sound and rhythm of language. Newborns recognize various sounds, rise and fall of the pitch, sound stress and the pace of a language.

6 to 12 months

Here they attend to sounds and voices and are able to recognize facial expressions and the tone of voice.

This is where they’re babbling “ma-ma” and “da-da”, they start vocalizing with others and are able to recognize the names of very few objects.

1 to 2 years

In this stage, they can respond to their own name and familiar requests like “come here” or “stop”. This is the stage they understand gestures such as a wave equals “hi” or “bye”.

In this stage, they understand about one word in a sentence like “mouth” in “Where’s your mouth?”

2–3 years

They can follow 2 part instructions such as “go upstairs and get your jacket.” They can understand and point to body parts, clothing items, toys and food.

In this stage, they can name actions like “go” and “run”. Their vocabulary by age 2 is limited to 200 to 300 words and by 3 years old they can use about 1000 words. In this stage, they can understand and ask “what” and “where” questions.

They use a minimum of 2 to 3 words in sentences therefore their sentences are inaccurate grammatically but are coherent. For instance, they will say things like “mama go outside.” They understand vocabulary related to positions, size and quantity.

3–4 years

They understand longer, more complex sentences in this stage such as being able to follow 3 part instructions like “point to the door, the chair and the table”. By4 years old they can use about 1500 words with each sentence consisting of a minimum of 3–4 words. They can tell you what they are doing and the function/use of objects. This is the stage they also begin to talk about past events. They can now understand ‘who’ questions all while being able to ask ‘what, why, when, how’ questions.

4–5 years

In this stage, they can follow the meaning of other people’s conversations. They continue to expand their vocabulary. Here they understand colour and shape vocabulary combined (“purple circle”) and are able to categorize objects into simple categories like “food, animal, colours”.

Their sentences are getting longer too. They’re able to make 4–5-word sentences. Now not only can they talk about past events but also future events. They can ask for the meaning of words and understand ‘how’ questions.

5–6 years

This is the stage when their language starts getting more complex. They use more complex sentences, are more imaginative (plays pretend and act out stories) and can name many attributes about an object. They are able to follow multistep instructions and their understanding of vocabulary increases.

Here they understand irregular past tense words like “broke” and “fell”. They gain an understanding of the concept of time (“tomorrow, yesterday, morning etc). They can now use ‘how’ and ‘where’ questions.

6–7 years

In this stage, their language acquisition has practically moved on to what is similar to adult communication. They can share ideas, provide examples, justify their decisions, make predictions, give solutions, follow multistep instructions and classify objects into more specific traits like classifying objects based on its use, what it’s made of, or it’s composition.

They can give short oral reports and use language at a higher comprehension level in which they can make jokes, tease others, be sarcastic, argue their point of view, explain complex situations, talk about books/movies in detail.

In this stage, they develop written language skills and are able to write descriptive paragraphs and stories. This is the stage they can differentiate between reality and fantasy.

7–8 years

This is the stage in which they can sit and listen to speeches for a continuous period of time, express their opinion better, retell imaginary and real events, use correct grammar in speech and in writing, problem solve and ask questions to clarify or confirm information.

Conclusion

It is important to remember adults play a crucial role in children’s’ language development. Adults, whether it’s the child’s caregivers, other family members, or teachers, help children learn language primarily by talking with them.

To promote language learning in children all you have to do is simply try to have conversations with them. Discuss various topics with children and engage them in listening exercises because language is both receptive and expressive. Remember, children are a lot smarter than we think.

Education begins the moment we see children as innately wise and capable beings. Only then can we play along in their world. — Vince Gowman

How Do Children Learn Language? 4 Big Takeaway Lessons for Language Learners

Kids are amazing language learners : In the span of about 20 months, they go from being a total newb to being a fluent speaker in their native language.

What lessons can foreign language learners get from these precious kids?

Then, we’ll crystallize the lessons we learn from first language development and use them to help adults learn a foreign language.

Contents

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How Do Children Learn Language? 4 Big Takeaway Lessons for Language Learners

How do children do it? Let’s look at the issue in finer detail.

The Developmental Stages & Their Milestones

Pre-birth

We used to think that language learning began at the moment of birth. But scientists in Washington, Stockholm and Helsinki discovered that fetuses are actually listening inside the womb.

They gave mothers a recording of made-up words to play during the final weeks of pregnancy. The babies heard the pseudo-words around 50-71 times while inside their mother’s womb. After they were born, these babies were tested. By hooking them up to an EEG, scientists were able to see images of the babies’ brains when the made-up words were played.

To their astonishment, the babies remembered and recognized the words that were presented when they were in the womb.

You know what this suggests, right?

It points to pre-natal language learning.

It turns out, the first day of learning language isn’t when one is born, but 30 weeks into the pregnancy when babies start to develop their hearing ability. So be careful what you say around a pregnant woman, ok? Somebody’s listening.

0-6 Months

Newborn babies are keen listeners in their environments. They particularly like to listen to the voice of their mother and they quickly differentiate it from other voices. They also learn to recognize the sounds of her language from a foreign one.

Baby communication centers on expressing pain and pleasure. And if you listen very carefully, you’ll notice that babies have different types of cries for different needs. A cry for milk is different from a cry for a new diaper—although a flustered first-time father might not hear any difference.

Around the 4 th month, babies engage in “vocal play” and babbles unintelligible sounds—including those that begin with the letters M, P and B. (This is when mommy swears that she heard baby say “mama.”)

6-12 Months

This is the peek-a-boo stage.

Babies pay attention and smile when you call them by name.

They also start responding to “Hi!” and “Good morning.”

At this stage, babies continue babbling and having fun with language. But this time, their unintelligible expressions have put on a certain kind of sophistication. They seem to be putting words together. You could’ve sworn she was telling you something.

It will actually be around this time when babies learn their first words (“no,” “mama,” “dada” and so on).

By the 12 th month, you’ll have that nagging feeling that she understands more than she lets on. And you would be right. Babies, although they can’t speak much, recognize a lot. They begin to recognize key words like “cup,” “ball,” “dog” and “car.”

And on her first birthday, she’ll definitely learn what the word “cake” means.

1-2 Years Old

This is the “Where’s-Your-Nose?” stage.

Babies learn to differentiate and point to the different parts of their bodies. They’ll also be very receptive to queries like “where’s daddy?” and requests like “clap your hands” or “give me the book.”

As always, her comprehension goes ahead of her ability to speak. But in this stage, she’ll be learning even more words. Her utterances will graduate into word pairs like “eat cake,” “more play” and “no ball.”

This is also the time when she loves hearing those sing-along songs and rhymes. And guess what? She’ll never tire of these, so be prepared to listen to her favorite rhymes over and over and over again.

2-4 Years Old

There will be a tremendous increase in learned words at this stage. She now seems to have a name for everything—from the cups she uses to her shoes and toys. She gains more nouns, verbs and adjectives in her linguistic arsenal.

Her language structure becomes more and more complicated. Her sentences get longer and her grammar mistakes get slowly weeded out. This time, she can express statements like “I’m hungry mommy” or “my friend gave me this.”

She’ll start to get really talkative and ask questions like, “where are we going, daddy?”

By this time, you’ll begin to suspect that she’s preparing to ask ever more difficult questions.

The child has learned the language and has become a native speaker.

4 Big Takeaway Lessons for Foreign Language Learners

We’ve just gone over how babies progress to acquire their first language.

Is there something in this process that adult language learners can emulate in their quest to learn foreign languages? Well, as it turns out, there is.

Understanding this early childhood learning process has major implications for adult language learners.

In this part of the post, we’re going to peek behind the curtain and look even deeper into how children learn languages to reap 4 vital lessons.

Each one of these lessons is an essential part of linguistic success.

If you wanna know how babies go from “goo-goo gaa-gaa” to “Mom, will you please buy me this remote-controlled toy airplane?” then please read on.

1. The Centrality of Listening

We’ve learned in the previous section that listening comes very early in the language acquisition process. Babies get a masterclass on the different tones, rhythms and sounds of a language even before they see the light of day.

Without listening, they’d have no building blocks from which they can build their own repertoire of sounds.

Listening is so important for language acquisition that babies don’t fully develop their language capabilities without the ability to hear. Thus we have the deaf-mute pairing. How can one learn to speak when one can’t even hear others or oneself doing it?

In addition, children who suffer hearing problems early in life experience delays in their expressive and receptive communication skills. Their vocabulary develops slower and they often have difficulty understanding abstract words (eg. extreme, eager and pointless). Their sentences are also shorter and simpler.

In general, the greater the hearing loss, the poorer the children do in academic evaluations.

Listening is that central to language.

It’s the first language skill humans develop.

And yet, how many language programs pound on the issue of listening as a central skill, as opposed to grammar or vocabulary?

Listening is deceptive, isn’t it? It seems like nothing’s happening. It’s too passive an activity, unlike speaking. When speaking you actually can hear what was learned. The benefits of listening are initially not heard.

Contrary to common belief, listening can be an intensely active activity.

So as a foreign language learner, you need to devote time to actively listen to your target language. Don’t just play those podcasts passively in the background. Actively engage in the material. Don’t multitask if at all possible. Sit down and don’t move—like a baby who hasn’t learned how to walk.

Take every opportunity to listen to the language as spoken by native speakers. When you watch a movie or a language learning video, for example, don’t just focus on the visual stimulation. Listen for the inflections, tones and rhythms of words.

It may not look like much but, yes, listening is that powerful.

2. The Primacy of Making Mistakes

Listening to a 1-year-old talk is such a delight. They’re so cute and innocent. Their initial statements betray a string of misappropriated vocabulary, fuzzy logic and grammar violations.

When a 1-year-old points to a dog and says “meow,” we find it so cute. When his older sister says, “I goed there today,” we don’t condemn the child. We instead correct her by gently saying, “No Sally, not goed. Went!”

We aren’t as kind to adults. We’re even worse to ourselves.

Ever since we learned in school that making mistakes means lower test scores, we dreaded making them. Mistakes? Bad. And we carry over this fear when we’re learning a foreign language as adults.

That’s why, unless we’re 100% sure of its correctness, we don’t want to blurt out a single sentence in our target language. First we make sure that the words are in their proper order, the verbs are in the proper tense and agree with the subject in number and gender.

Now something tells me that a 10-month-old has no problems committing more mistakes in one sentence than she has words. In fact, she probably won’t admit that there’s something wrong—or ever know that something’s wrong. She just goes on with her life and continues listening.

Why don’t we follow this spirit of a child?

We already know that it works because the kid who once exclaimed, “my feets hurt,” is now galloping towards a degree in Sociology.

As a foreign language learner, one of the things you need to make peace with is the fact that you’re gonna make mistakes. It comes with the territory and you’re gonna have to accept that.

Make as many mistakes as you can. Make a fool out of yourself, like a 2-year-old, and laugh along the way. Pay your dues. And if you’re as diligent correcting those mistakes as you are making them, soon enough you’ll be on your way to fluency.

3. The Joy of Repetition

Around 6-12 months, playing peek-a-boo with your daughter never gets old. She always registers genuine surprise every time you reveal yourself. And she’d laugh silly all day—all because of a very simple game.

And remember around 1-2 years old when babies can’t get enough of those sing-songy rhymes? They wanted you to keep pressing the “replay” button while watching their favorite cartoon musical on YouTube. You were wondering when they were gonna get sick of it.

But lo and behold, each time was like the first time. They weren’t getting sick of it. In fact, it was getting more exciting for them.

Repetition. It’s a vital element of learning. If there’s one reason why babies learn so fast, it’s because they learn stuff over and over—to the point of overlearning.

Adults never have the patience to overlearn a language lesson, to repeat the same lesson over and over without feeling bored to tears. Adults quickly interpret this as being “stuck.” This lack of forward motion is promptly followed by the thought that time is being wasted. They think they should press quickly on to the next lesson. Which they do, to the detriment of their learning.

We repeat a vocabulary word 3x and expect it to stay with us for life—believing it will now be saved in our long-term memory. Quite unrealistic isn’t it?

In the prenatal experiment where made-up words were played to babies still in the womb, each word was heard by the baby at least 50 times. (Is it really a wonder then that the baby, when tested, recognized the words?)

Repetition is vital to learning. In fact, many apps take the concept further and introduce the idea of Spaced Repetition. To find out more about this hyper-effective learning method, click here.

Unless you’re a genius with an eidetic memory, repetition will be one of your most important allies in the quest for foreign language mastery.

Repetition can take the form of replaying videos, rereading words, rewriting vocabulary, re-listening to podcasts and re-doing games and exercises.

Keep on repeating until it becomes a habit. Because that’s what a language ultimately is.

4. The Importance of Immersion

And is there anything more immersive than a baby being born and experiencing the world by observation?

Think about what the baby is experiencing. She’s like an Englishman suddenly being dropped in the middle of China without access to the internet.

Everything is new.

So you use your innate abilities to make generalizations, read context, listen to native speakers and imitate how they speak.

Everything is on the line. You’ve got to learn how to communicate fast, otherwise you won’t get to eat—even when you’re sitting at a Chinese restaurant. It’s a totally immersive experience where you’re not learning a language just for kicks or for your resume. You’re doing it for your very survival. (That takes care of the “motivation” part of your learning.)

There’s nothing fake about a child learning a language. It’s a totally immersive and authentic experience—all their early language lessons are learned in a meaningful social context. I have yet to meet a baby who learned his first language by enrolling in a class.

For the adult language learner, immersion can be experienced remotely. One way of achieving immersion is by getting exposed to as much speech from native speakers as possible.

This type of immersion can be a challenge if there aren’t any subtitles, however, especially if you don’t have the basics of the language down yet.

FluentU is an app that teaches you a language using authentic video content (including movie trailers, commercials and music videos) featuring native speakers.

The videos on FluentU expose you to a language in context, providing the immersion that’s necessary for language learning. This immersion comes from practice listening to the language, while also being able to access word definitions through interactive subtitles, flashcards, quizzes and more.

This way, you can learn a language the same way children do it: by listening to it used in context.

So, there you go!

Who knew little kids could teach us so much about learning a foreign language?

Now it’s officially time to put these lessons into practice: (1) Listen, (2) don’t be afraid to make mistakes, (3) repeat everything and (4) immerse yourself in your target language.

Whether it’s French, Spanish, Japanese, Korean or Russian, if you follow the path that the babies have laid out for you, you’ll be speaking that target language like the natives in no time!

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

How Do Children Learn Foreign Languages so Easily?

Diana Lăpușneanu in Language Tips

Learning a foreign language is good for kids but how do they do it so easily?‌ Here’s what science says about the cognitive advantages of kids.

Learning a foreign language is good for your brain. Regardless of age. That we already discussed. Now, if you looked into it, you saw that there are studies that show how bilingual children outperform monolingual children in math, social studies, reading, memory tests, and many other areas. The bottom line is that learning a second language at an early age is not bad – as many would think. On the contrary! But the question we ask ourselves today is: how and why do children learn foreign languages so easily?

Well, scientists claim that everything is about the brain and the stimulation it receives. Biologically, a child’s brain is prepared for learning. It is literally built to absorb information. You probably already noticed that if you lived with a small child for more than a month. But science also discovered that there’s a ‘critical period’ for learning languages that happens roughly from birth to around puberty.

Fascinating, isn’t it? Let’s find out more.

“Little girl reading” by Jonathan Borba©

How do toddlers learn languages?

Babies aren’t born British, American, Portuguese, French, Spanish, or Turkish. I mean… they practically are, but, in fact, they aren’t. Being born in Germany doesn’t make you fluent in German. But thanks to your brain’s architecture, you gradually familiarize yourself with the language you were born into. You may not remember this process but you learned your native language. You were not born knowing in.

Now, did it ever happen to you to live for a few days in a foreign country and then come back home and still hear the language that was spoken there? Even though people around you spoke your native language? Well, your brain got used to that language and kept hearing it. Isn’t that fascinating? That’s how important it is to get used to hearing a language. It is almost the same for babies.

But then, around one year of age, the brain’s capacity for change starts to decrease. As the baby gets used to the sound of the language his parents are speaking, the brain is slowly starting to lose the ability to recognize sounds from other languages.

Basically, as a baby, you start off with an impeccable slate. You are open to learning everything new – especially languages – because now your brain is more open than ever to new sounds. In the first few months, you listen – this is a crucial period during which the brain grows accustomed to the language – and then you slowly start to imitate the sounds you heard or still hear.

All these incredible processes are possible thanks to the brain and the amazing changes that happen inside it. To give you a glimpse of how important it is, hear this: during the first few years of your life, more than 1 million new neural connections are formed in the brain every single second.

“Discovering the world” by Colin Maynard©

Understanding the process: the cognitive advantages of kids

All around this whole wide world, there are many kids who learn two languages at the same time starting from the first or second year of their life. Studies have shown that they can distinguish between the two languages they learn even before they speak the first word namely because they begin life with a tendency for phonology acquisition. That’s incredible!

Then there’s Stephen Krashen‘s theory that states that while adults learn languages, children acquire them. In other words, adults consciously learn about a language using vocabulary lessons, grammar rules and so on; and children gradually know the language better and better through speaking. How is that possible? Well, there’s a major difference between how these two generations assimilate language information. Let’s see.

Let’s think of listening to a song that you like, but you really, really like (pun intended). If you really, really like it, you will listen to this song more than a few times and soon enough you’ll know the rhythm and the lyrics by heart with no effort whatsoever. That’s what’s called unconscious learning – a process similar to how children learn languages.

On the other hand, when you study for a test, retaining information is not nearly as easy. And that happens because you make a conscious effort to learn – a process that makes it more difficult for your brain to gather information.

If you want to dive into it and find some scientific research to back this up, you’ll probably discover Dr. Paul Thompson’s study at UCLA. With this study, researchers observed that to acquire languages, children use a part of their brain called the “deep motor area”, an area that also controls unconscious actions like signing your name or riding a bike. This is why they pick up words and phrases without much effort – the same we do with songs. The conclusion of the study was, unsurprisingly, that language acquisition is second nature to children.

Furthermore, as we already discussed, the brain’s plasticity and structure change completely by the time we reach puberty. We become more skilled at complex thought and intellectual learning and we begin to process information differently. Our brain doesn’t focus on language learning as much as it did a few years back. Instead, it developed in other ways and language learning is now processed through mechanisms intended for general learning.

“Reading with dad” by Picsea©

Stimulation and environment

Learning a new language may seem like a piece of cake for children, but there are also other factors – like stimulation and environment – that influence their success in speaking a second language like natives.

Speaking about the importance of stimulation in a child’s life, the Harvard University Center on the Developing Child claims that when babies reach out for interaction through gestures, facial expressions, or babbling and get no answer in response – “or if the responses are unreliable or inappropriate” – the brain’s structure does not form as expected and this can lead to disparities in learning and behavior.

On the other hand, the environment is just as important. It is true that children have cognitive advantages as than adults, but they also have a lot of time on their hands and no worries on their minds. Besides, they are not afraid to make mistakes. As you probably know, it is much easier to learn a language if you’re comfortable sounding foolish or making mistakes. Most adults feel anxious when they need to talk in a foreign language, but children just go at it! They make mistakes, they invent new words, they laugh and then try again. So, if you want your children to learn a second language, try to keep it that way. Don’t laugh at them when they make a mistake and keep their environment stress-free.

You can now learn a new language as fast as a toddler

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Start using Mondly for free on your computer or tablet or, better yet, download the Mondly app on your iOS or Android device and learn languages fast anytime, anywhere.

Do you want to learn languages as fast as a kid in just 10 minutes a day?

How Do Children Learn Language?

Sarah Rahal, MD is a double board-certified adult and pediatric neurologist and headache medicine specialist.

Thomas Northcut / Getty Images

Language development is an amazing process. In fact, learning language is natural, an innate process babies are born knowing how to do. Interestingly, all children, no matter which language their parents speak, learn language in the same way.

Overall, there are three stages of language development, which occur in a familiar pattern. So, when children are learning to speak, understand, and communicate, they follow an expected series of milestones as they begin to master their native tongue. However, note that individual children will progress at their own pace along this timeline within an expected range of deviation.

Language Development Stage 1: Learning Sounds

When babies are born, they can hear and distinguish all the sounds in all the languages in the world. That’s about 150 sounds in about 6500 languages, though no language uses all of those sounds. The sounds a language uses are called phonemes and English has about 44. Some languages use more and some use fewer.

In this stage, babies learn which phonemes belong to the language they are learning and which don’t. The ability to recognize and produce those sounds is called “phonemic awareness,” which is important for children learning to read.

The best way to promote language development for babies is simply to talk to your child. Babies learn by experiencing (and listening to) the world around them, so the more language they are exposed to the better. Additionally, you can put words to their actions. Talk to them as you would in conversation, pausing for them to respond, then you can say back what you think they might say. However, note that simply talking to them attentively is enough for them to pick up language.

Baby Language Milestones

Though all children learn in basic stages, language develops at different rates in different children. Most children follow a familiar pattern.

Language Development Stage 2: Learning Words

At this stage, children essentially learn how the sounds in a language go together to make meaning. For example, they learn that the sounds m—ah—m—ee refer to the “being” who cuddles and feeds them, their mommy.

This is a significant step because everything we say is really just a stream of sounds. To make sense of those sounds, a child must be able to recognize where one word ends and another one begins. These are called “word boundaries.”

However, children are not learning words, exactly. They are actually learning morphemes, which are the smallest, discrete chunks words can be broken into. A morpheme may be a word on its own or may be combined with other morphemes to form a word. So in “mommy,” there are two morphemes: “ma” and “mee.”

Help your child build their language skills by reading to them often. And of course, keep having child-centric conversations with them as studies show that babies learn language best within a social context. Another way to encourage their communication and social skills is to mimic their noises (such as their babbling) and say them back to them. You can also mirror their facial expressions and describe their actions as well as narrate what is happening around them.

Understanding Plurals

The word mommies has two morphemes: mommy and –s. Children at this stage can recognize that the –s means «more than one.» They also begin to associate that meaning with other words when the sound is added.

Baby and Toddler Language Milestones

As your baby develops over the second half of their first year and into toddlerhood, their ability to make sounds and respond conversationally will continue to improve.

Language Development Stage 3: Learning Sentences

During this stage, children learn how to create sentences. That means they can put words in the correct order. For example, they learn that in English we say «I want a cookie» and «I want a chocolate cookie,» not «Want I a cookie» or «I want cookie chocolate.»

Children also learn the difference between grammatical correctness and meaning. Noam Chomsky created an example of this difference in the sentence “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.” Children will know that although the sentence is grammatically correct, it doesn’t make sense. They know that green is a color and so it can’t be colorless and that ideas don’t sleep. However, they also know that the noun and verb structure of the sentence works.

To promote language development during this stage model good speech habits by speaking clearly, looking at them in the eye, not interrupting, and giving them a chance to talk. You can also add on to what they say to give them an idea of more complex ways to articulate their ideas and requests. Ask your child lots of questions and encourage their questions too to keep the dialog going.

Toddler and Preschooler Language Milestones

Your toddler and preschooler is now using full words, simple sentences, and eventually more complex dialog.

By the pre-teen years, kids begin to use what are called although-type sentences. These sentences show a concession such as, «Even though the man was tired, he kept working.» Young children would likely say “The man was tired, but he kept working.”

Language Development Concerns

Contact your child’s pediatrician if your child’s language skills seem to be developing slower than expected. Also, mention any other communication-related concerns you may have or if any other developmental milestones appear to be lagging to their pediatrician. Often your child may just be developing their language skills slower but within the normal expected range, but sometimes a delay may point to another issue.

Early intervention is important for many speech-related (and other developmental) concerns and can help to bolster these skills.

A Word From Verywell

Remember that children develop language at their own pace, and the best way to help is to talk, sing, and read to them. Other than that, simply enjoy your child’s coos, ma-mas, and da-das while they last.

Hutauruk B. Children first language acquisition at age 1-3 years old In Balata. IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science. 2015;(20)8:51-57. doi:10.9790/0837-20855157

Seidl A, Cristia A. Infants’ learning of phonological status. Front Psychol. 2012;3:448. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00448

Bergelson E, Swingley D. At 6-9 months, human infants know the meanings of many common nouns. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2012;109(9):3253-8. doi:10.1073/pnas.1113380109

Waxman S, Fu X, Arunachalam S, Leddon E, Geraghty K, Song HJ. Are nouns learned before verbs? Infants provide insight into a longstanding debate. Child Dev Perspect. 2013;7(3). doi:10.1111/cdep.12032

Eisenberg S, Guo L, Germezia M. How grammatical are 3-year-olds? Lang Speech Hear Serv Sch. 2012;43;36-52. doi:10.1044/0161-1461(2011/10-0093)

How Do Children Learn Languages? What The Experts Have To Say

Justlearn

You may have heard that it is easier and quicker for children to learn languages than it is for adults.

Actually, forget “may have heard”, chances are you’ve experienced it yourself!

If you’ve spent any time around babies or children, you might have seen examples of just how quickly they learn to speak and understand a language.

From babbling to baby talk to simple sentences to cheerful conversations, it seems like the gently cooing baby becomes a mile-a-minute toddler in no time!

Linguistics and psychologists agree that how children learn language is through exposure and interaction with language. They pick up the language that they hear spoken around them and spoken to them.

The key here is “interaction”, that means the child needs to be spoken to.

It’s not enough that the child hears a conversation, say on a TV or radio program.

While for older children, educational TV or radio programs may have some benefits in increasing their vocabulary, for children below the age of 2 it could actually have a negative effect on their language development.

Language learning is instinctive

The ability to acquire language and use it is thought of as a distinctively human trait. While animals may “communicate” using gestures or body language or even sounds, they are incapable of combining these sounds to convey complex thoughts and messages.

Many linguists believe that for a child, language acquisition is easier because it is genetic and instinctive. A newborn’s brain is programmed to learn language – there is some evidence as well that a fetus can listen and register the sounds of language even in the womb.

So, children are born with the ability to learn how to talk and may already recognize some sounds as “language”.

Some researchers believe that there is a “critical period”, around infancy till puberty, where language acquisition is easier. This is because of the structure of the brain, which changes slightly upon puberty.

The idea that babies are born with an instinctive means to acquire language is usually associated by linguist Noam Chomsky, who proposed a theory called Universal Grammar.

Universal Grammar proposes that there we are born with grammatical information, an innate set of structural rules.

According to Chomsky, the human brain has a limited set of constraints placed on how we organize language. This means that all languages have a common structural basis and we are born with an instinctive knowledge of what these structures are.

For example, according to the idea of Universal Grammar, at birth we already know to categorize some words as nouns and some as verbs and have the ability to combine these into phrases. A child then just needs to learn these words in their native language.

There is another psychological theory about child language acquisition called morphology acquisition which postulates that what children are born with is sensitivity to the patterns found in language. By gradually recognizing these patterns, mostly through repetition, the child picks up the meaning of language and how to use it.

How does a child learn language?

When we look into how a child learns their mother tongue, the obvious layman answer would be that the child learns to speak from its family. Would you be surprised to know that the expert opinion of many linguists and child development psychologists is pretty much the same?

While most linguists do believe that children are born with a natural ability to learn language, they also say that language development in children comes through interaction with their parents and any other adults or even older children.

Parents and caretakers need to speak to the child in order for the child to pick up that language. Children who are not spoken to will not acquire language skills. The need to hear people speaking and be spoken to is one of the reasons why deaf children have difficulties learning to speak.

One of the earliest psychological explanations of child language acquisition came from psychologist B. F. Skinner, who developed the idea of “Behaviorism”. According to Skinner environmental influence, the input of those around them are crucial to a child learning the proper use of language.

Skinner championed the behaviorist reinforcement principle, which meant that a child learned through positive reinforcement. When a child tries to say something, and gets a positive response from its caretakers, that is when it realizes that words are not just sounds but a means to communicate.

Skinner also postulated that this is how child learns meanings and uses of language. For example, if it say’s “cookie” and gets a cookie, it now knows what that “sound” means. A child can be said to have acquired or understood a language when it uses “sounds” to get a desired effect.

The idea that children learn language by interacting with adults is called the “social interactions theory” and it’s similar to Skinner’s idea of behaviorism in the sense that a child learns through the reactions of the adults around it.

According to proponents of social interaction, a child develops language skills from “modeling” or copying adults and “interaction”, getting feedback and correction.

Is “baby talk” language?

Not really, but it is important for language acquisition.

It’s thought that “baby talk”, the simplified and exaggerated way that some adults speak to small children might actually be helpful in allowing them to learn language. Baby talk often uses simpler words and even sentence constructions, which makes their meaning easier to grasp.

The exaggerated sounds and intonation of an adult speaking “baby talk” also makes it easier for a child to pick up and copy. Not to mention the fact that “baby talk” tends to feature a lot of repeated phrases and questions.

All these features of “baby talk” help a baby figure out the sounds and sentence patterns of their native language as well as their meanings.

Stages of learning to talk

A baby learning to talk first learns to make sounds and recognize sounds. There are about 150 sounds that are common to 6,500 languages. These sounds are called phonemes and the ability to recognize and repeat these sounds is called phonemic awareness.

The first sounds they make are basically crying. But by around six weeks of age, a baby will start making sounds that resemble vowels, like “ah” and “ee” and “oh.” This is usually referred to as “babbling”

At around four months, another important skill for language learning is developed. This is the ability to distinguish a noise from a language sound.

By the time a baby is about six month old, their “babbling” gets a bit more complex and they start producing sounds that are basically a pairing of the vowel sounds they made at six weeks, plus some constant sounds that they have picked up. This is usually the time that proud parents start declaring that they have said either “ma” or “da”.

By the time a baby is eight months old, the can distinguish word boundaries are starting to recognize sound groups.

When a child reaches the age of one or one and a half years, they will probably start uttering single words, mostly words that refer to a concrete thing, such as “cookie”. They are beginning to recognize that certain sounds are “words” and that they refer to something. This is when we can say that a baby is learning words.

By the time they turn two, they might start putting words together to make simple sentences, such as “eat cookie” or “like cookie”. They also start being able to express sentences and even ask questions.

When a child hits the age of three years old, they are beginning to develop more complex language skills and can be said to be “talking” even if their sentences tend to be simple and their grammar needs to be corrected.

It is at this age that many children around the world start going to some sort of preschool or kindergarten. Their experiences here and with people outside of their immediate family group begin to really shape their language skills and enable them to gain fluency.

Conclusion

Most linguists and psychologists seem to agree that children learn a language by being regularly exposed to it. Specifically, interactions with caretakers help a child acquire language in order to be able to use it to communicate.

This isn’t that different from the idea that, if you want to learn a second language as an adult, you need to be immersed in it. Having the opportunity to hear it spoken by native language speakers and – best of all – having the chance to have conversations with native language speakers is the quickest way to gain fluency.

This is why, for an adult looking to learn a second language, working with a native language speaking tutor, like the ones who work with JustLearn is crucial. It ensures that you are regularly exposed to the language that you want to learn and get to practice having conversations with native speakers.

Why is it easier for a child to learn a second language?

It’s easier for children to learn languages as they are younger, they have more time and their brain is designed to learn a new language. While they’re still learning their own mother tongue, it’s easier for them to get used a foreign language than it is for adults whose brain is more experienced.

When should I start teaching my child a second language?

It’s good to start teaching your children a second language as early as possible, because it’s easier for them to become fluent in it. Introduce the foreign language in the first year of your child if you want to increase their chances of becoming fluent one day.

How do you teach a child language?

Parents and caretakers need to speak to the child in order for the child to pick up that language. Children who are not spoken to will not acquire language skills.