what it means when they say a child learns most of their vocabulary in the first three years of its life?
In: Biology
Regardless if it’s true or not, the idea with the sentence is by the time the child is three it will have learned a majority of the words they’ll use in day-to-day conversation in their lives. A large part of our vocabulary is composed of fairly simple words that directly apply to our daily routine, and kids pick these up fairly quickly because they are so common around them.
Whoever is telling you that is lying to you. Children should know somewhere around 1,000 words by age 3.
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This is false and true at the same time. Children have not learned the most of their vocabulary after three years, they have however developed a large part of their understanding of how a language works, and many of the cognitive developments that are needed to form the different sounds and complex structures of sentences. Actually, after the first few years the main thing that you learn, when it comes to language, is vocabulary, so you have got it a bit backwards. This is why it is much harder for older people to grasp foreign languages that uses different syntax and tones than your 1st language. We can however learn foreign words pretty easily.
The reason for this is that the brain is very adaptable in the early years of life. This is called brain Plasticity. Many of the neurological pathways are forming during these years to later be more solid lager in life. This is why small children learn to walk at such an extreme rate, or actually why the notion of “you never forget how to ride a bike”. That statement is only true if learned when you were young.
This was a bit of a mess, please ask if there is some part of it you didn’t really understand!
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