--- title: How babies learn to talk — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «How babies learn to talk», a lesson of the language course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Babies start learning language before they can say a single word: newborns already prefer their mother's voice and the sounds of the language th --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/31-how-babies-learn-to-talk/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Language](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/) / How babies learn to talk # How babies learn to talk Lesson 31 of the language course of Mova's primary school: 14 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/language/31-how-babies-learn-to-talk/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/31-how-babies-learn-to-talk/0/) — Babies start learning language before they can say a single word: newborns already prefer their mother's voice and the sounds of the language they heard before they were born. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/31-how-babies-learn-to-talk/1/) — At about six months Baby Leo says "ba-ba-ba" and "da-da-da" and his dad cries "He said Dad!"; really Leo is practising sounds, like a musician playing scales, and real first words usually come around the first birthday. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/31-how-babies-learn-to-talk/2/) — Toddlers don't just copy: when Kai says "I runned and I falled", he is using the rule "add -ed for the past", only on verbs that break the rule, which shows he has worked the rule out by himself. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/31-how-babies-learn-to-talk/3/) — Children's mistakes are clues to how clever they are; calling every four-legged animal "dog" or mixing two languages in one sentence are normal steps, and they sort themselves out. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/31-how-babies-learn-to-talk/4/) — Babies start learning language before birth; newborns prefer their mother's voice and the sounds of the language they heard before they were born. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/31-how-babies-learn-to-talk/5/) — Babbling, repeating sounds like "ba-ba" and "da-da", usually starts around six months; it is practice, not real words yet. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/31-how-babies-learn-to-talk/6/) — First real words usually come around a child's first birthday. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/31-how-babies-learn-to-talk/7/) — "Ma" and "pa" are among the easiest sounds for babies, so many languages use them for parents (English "mama", Ukrainian "мама", Mandarin "māma", French "maman"); this does not prove all languages are one family. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/31-how-babies-learn-to-talk/8/) — Around age 2, children put two or three key words together, like "Me want biscuit!", leaving out small words; this is called telegraphic speech and is normal. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/31-how-babies-learn-to-talk/9/) — When children use a rule on words that don't follow it, like "runned" and "falled", it is called overregularisation; it shows they are learning rules. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/31-how-babies-learn-to-talk/10/) — In 1958 the scientist Jean Berko Gleason made the "wug test": children who had never heard "wug" still said "two wugs", which showed they know rules, not just copied words. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/31-how-babies-learn-to-talk/11/) — Children growing up with two languages often mix them in one sentence ("Я хочу biscuit!"); this is called code-switching or code-mixing and is normal, not confusion. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/31-how-babies-learn-to-talk/13/) — Young children usually pick up accents and sounds more easily, but adults can still learn languages well and are often quicker at grammar and new words at first. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/31-how-babies-learn-to-talk/14/) — Using one word for too many things, like calling a horse "dog", is called overextension; it is normal, and children learn the differences over time. - ← previous: [Texting, abbreviations and emoji](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/30-texting-abbreviations-and-emoji/) - next →: [Sign language](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/32-sign-language/) - ↑ back to [Language](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/)