How Do Children Learn Languages so Quickly?

Ever heard a child babbling something? Those strange sounds they make sound so cute, but we think little of them. From sign language to reflexive cries to speaking some words that seem quite alien to us, however, gradually develop into intentional communication. This surprises us and before we know it, the child has learned the rudiments of language. How does this happen? How do children so quickly pick up and master all the sounds used in a particular language in the environment when they are exposed to a variety of non-language sounds as well?

Long before a child can vocalize its wants and needs, its mother can understand it. The mother interprets when a child cries for food or has a dirty diaper or when wants to be picked up! Thus, babies do not really need language to communicate. Why then do they learn language at all? Is it simply a desire to imitate what they hear in their daily lives or are they born with some natural inclination to learn the languages they are exposed to? This is a question that child psychologists have struggled with for years.

There is a theory of universal grammar which states that children have an instinctive capacity to acquire languages. This is a capacity they are born with. When we speak of universal grammar, we mean to say that this grammar is common across all languages. A child hears the language in its environment uses this universal grammar as a starting point to learning that language. For example, every language distinguishes between actions and things and in most languages, a sentence is not complete unless it includes an action and a subject.

Another example is the fact that the rule that the noun and the adjective must be adjacent to each other is universal to almost all languages. Of course, there is some variation among how different languages express the same idea. For example, an English speaker will say "the blue book" while a French speaker will say (literally) "the book blue." Children comprehend these subtle differences in the way languages work effortlessly. This has led some to speculate that children have such a natural facility to language because they are born with some knowledge of grammar.

When a child learns the first language, it is remarkable how he/she acquires it so quickly. Before he reaches adulthood, he will master his native language whether or not he has any formal training in it. Without formal training, virtually everybody can learn more than enough of their primary language to speak it fluently within a matter of a few years after being able to vocalize. Training will allow them to speak "properly," but it is not necessary to converse with the average person on the street. Similarly, children have a natural ability to learn a second language. If a person begins learning a second language as a child, it will come much more easily to them than if they wait until they are a teenager or an adult. Why? Because children are, in a manner of speaking, sponges for knowledge. They absorb a wider range of ideas far faster than do adults.

All children, regardless of culture, acquire language at about the same time and along much the same schedule. The innate faculty that every newborn child is bestowed with is not quite enough by itself. A child raised by a single mute parent on a desert island would never learn how to speak on their own. He needs parents who will provide him with a language rich environment. In such an environment, he will excel at his primary language easily. With a little motivation, he may be able to excel at two or even three languages. The key is to start young so as to take advantage of that natural ability. It really is easier to teach the young than it is to "teach an old dog new tricks."