How do infants learns language without being formally instructed in a structured manner?
In: Biology
Language acquisition, is complex and fascinating. Here are key factors:
1. Innate Language Capacity: Evolution has provided this. Infants have innate language abilities due to evolution.
2. Language Exposure: Infants learn from their environment, hearing and observing language.
3. Imitation: Infants imitate sounds and vocalizations they hear, acquiring language sounds.
4. Reinforcement and Feedback: Caregivers reinforce infants’ language attempts, encouraging practice.
5. Cognitive Development: Language acquisition is linked to cognitive growth, including attention and memory.
6. Critical Period: Infants are most receptive to language during early infancy to puberty.
7. Universal Grammar: Infants have innate knowledge of linguistic principles shared across languages. I think this is especially fascinating.
8. Social Interaction: Infants learn language through interaction, developing communication skills.
Apart from what others have said, I would imagine that children also observe non-verbal cues and associate them with the language they hear. For example they would quickly learn the meaning of “no” when they were not allowed to do something.
There are multiple factors.
1. Children are just better at learning languages, in general
2. Children are literally surrounded by language. Parents, friends, books, road signs, their future native language is everywhere.
3. They don’t have a choice because they don’t know any other language. When an adults learn a new language, they are already know their native language, and always can use it to communicate. Especially if they are not currently live in the country whose language they learning, they always can switch to their native language. Children can’t.
4. Children’s parents usually teach language to their children a lot. It’s like if an adult have a teacher who is always around and ready to ask any question at any time.
they take an intensive 3 year immersion course with 2 personal tutors.
we call this “being raised by parrents”
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