How do babies learn language?

  One of the main characteristics that define humans from the rest of the animals is the ability to communicate with language. It seems natural that humans learn how to speak, just like an instinct, but how do we learn our language? The journey begins when we are first born.

  For years, scientists have struggled to figure out the explanation for this incredibly complicated process. MIT's linguist as well as political activist Noam Chomsky thinks he has the answer.  He claims that the babies have some kind of unconscious understanding of syntax and grammar, allowing them to learn language incredibly quickly. Moreover, they have a built in "bias" which helps them to understand the languages and pick up words from other people's communications. He suggests that the babies' brains understand the grammatical structure of our communications and try to utilize it to communicate.

  The languages in Earth can be categorized into 4 categories, according to the grammatical structure, involving the placement of modifiers such as adjectives or numbers, before or after a noun. Thus, the babies' brains learn the formula of the languages, and use it to form their own sentences. The babies also learn language by segmenting different sentences. When babies meet a sophisticated and long sentence that is hard to understand as a whole, their brains break the sentence into several segments, allowing the babies to easily understand what the sentence is telling them. The babies later utilize their vocabulary and put them together in a similar structure, and hence create their own sentences.

  The babies learn words, mainly by imitation and linking. The babies hear numerous words in one day: according to research, in one day, the approximate number of words that the babies hear is 18,000 to 30,000 words. This is incredibly a lot of words. The amazing thing is, the babies' brains actually take in all these words! They try to imitate the sounds, length and the pitch of the words, even when they do not know the meaning. The babies' brains eventually match the words with the pictures that match the words, and this is how babies learn words. For example, the most common word that babies first learn is "mom" or "dad". The parents usually speak these words to the babies, and since the babies see their mother or father while they listen to these words, they can link the words "mom" and "dad" to their parents.

Reflections
  After reading this article, I was literally amazed by how complicated the process of learning language was even when it seemed to be natural to us. The scientists also had a lot of difficulties when trying to figure out the explanation behind the phenomenon. It was also surprising by how the babies' brains could understand the grammar structures even when they did not have any lessons on the topic and also utilize the structure to create their own sentences. However, I wondered what is the "special understanding of grammar syntax". How did the understanding of syntax came to exist in babies' brains? The scientists say that it is a natural instinct, but then how did we get the ability? That is still a homework for us to solve in order to fully understand how we learn our language.

  The most interesting fact in this article was how the babies learn words. The babies start with simple words such as "Da" or "Ma", but after a few days they begin to speak words such as "car". It is so amazing how the babies could learn words, just by imitating other people's speeches and linking them to what they could see. I think the babies' brains do an excellent job. They could also put together and associate different words together and utilize as their own statement. This is an amazing ability since it allows the babies to be more creative and express their thoughts.

Here's an interesting video of babies "communicating" with each other.

As you see in the video, the babies speak with "da" all the time but they seem to communicate with each other, expressing their thoughts. Hence, this is the beginning process of how babies learn to pick up language.

In conclusion, I believe that although studying and explaining our amazing ability to learn language would be very difficult. However, I can see the benefits and potential influences it can bring to the scientific world. If we figure out what allows us to learn language, maybe we can utilize this ability in many different ways, such as enhancing our ability to learn language.