Babies Are Good Language Learners

It is hard to know what babies want. They can't talk, walk, or even point at what they want. Yet newborns begin to develop language skills long before they begin speaking. And, compared with adults, they develop these skils quickly. People have a hard time learning new languages as they grow older, but infants have the ability to learn any language easily.
Most babies go “goo goo” and “ma ma” by the time they are six months old. And most children speak in full sentences by the age of three. For decades, scientists have wondered how the brains of young children figure out how to communicate by using language. With help from new technologies and research strategies, scientists now find that babies begin life with the ability to learn any language.
They come into contact with other people, listen to what they say and watch their movements very closely. That is why they quickly master the languages they hear most often.
Studies show that, up to about six months, babies can recognize all the sounds that make up al the languages in the world. There are about 6,000 sounds that are spoken in languages all over the world, but not every language uses every sound. For example, English uses eight vowel(元音) sounds, and Japanese uses just five. Starting at around six months old, a baby's brain focuses on the most common sounds it hears. Then children begin responding only to the sounds of the language they hear the most.
In a similar way, older babies start recognizing the patterns that make up the rules of their native language. In English, for example, when children are about eighteen months old, they start to figure out that words ending in “-ing” or “-ed” are usually verbs, and that verbs are action words.

5. Scientists have found that the ability to learn a language comes with birth.