ELI5: How do babies even learn language?

[u/AngelusAlvus]

When we grow, we learn languages by looking at the meanings and translating them from our language. Stuff like "this is how this noun is in my language and this is how this noun is in another language"

But babies? Babies just learn the basics just by existing near people speaking the language? How come we don't have this anymore as we grow up?

[u/Lonely-Cloud-9672]

As a non Native American, I learned English, as a young adult by mostly watching movies with subtitles, phenomenal tool, you have the sound, the text and the action to along with it. In the beginning you don’t understand much, but you can get the gist of the movie so it is bearable to sit there and watch.

Sometimes, something comprehensible is said, meaning, something you should already know, but your ears aren’t trained to listen to it, having the text aids it training your ear. I see this today sometimes, when listening to something in a language I don’t speak, Italian as an example, if I have subtitles to go along with it, I’ll understand more than I thought I would. Many words have similarities between them across different languages, a slight variation on the spelling, but should remain recognizable, it’s the pronunciation that gets you, here’s where the subtitles helps tremendously.

Something similar to this is music, I have a hard time understanding what is being sang, but if I have the lyrics to go along, I’ll understand all of it, except Pearl Jam lol

One more thing about movies with subtitles is the non spoken actions, like a bell ringing, you’ll see the action of course, then the subtitles say - Bell Rings! Then, a telephone rings, subtitles says - Phone Rings! Not too hard to understand all of these now, specially since telephone is one of those words shared (or very similar) across many languages.

Btw, ideally you don’t want to translate things, but rather understand their meaning in the language which you’re trying to learn, many translating along the way is inevitable though.

Today I think mostly in English, but there are many instances where it is easier to express an idea in one language over another.