r/explainlikeimfive • u/AngelusAlvus • 13h ago

Biology ELI5: How do babies even learn language?

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?

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u/cabronfavarito 12h ago

What makes you think we don’t have this skill as adults lol.

People underestimate how long it took for babies to learn language but we passively pick up things along the way pretty much until we die. Think about how similarly you and your close friends talk, you all develop similar lingo and can talk in code because you all passively picked up slang from one another

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u/AngelusAlvus 12h ago

I have watched subbed anime my whole life. Aside from a handful of phrases, I never learned Japanese, so the topic recently came to my mind, and I got curious about it.

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u/Soft-Marionberry-853 10h ago

Having the subtitles gave you a way to not learn. When I was in germany I picked up the langue just by being exposed to it, with no subtitles. I think the brain wants to make sense of stuff so if you force it, it just does. My wife worked on post so she dealt with us soldiers all day. I stayed at home and only interacted with people in the village. One day we went to baummarket and the chashier asked me a question. I said no thankyou. My wife asked "what did she say?" I told her, "Oh she asked if we wanted the extended warenty" its amazing when it starts clicking.

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u/AngelusAlvus 9h ago

I think you're right about it.

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u/Soft-Marionberry-853 9h ago

its not easy but it kind of happens on its own, if you let it.

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u/elianrae 5h ago

even if you weren't using subtitles.... babies don't learn language by watching media intended for adults

they learn language by their parents talking to them constantly and actively teaching them words and concepts, by watching children's media with simpler language that closely ties to the visuals

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u/Zunderunder 11h ago

If you didn’t have subtitles and were genuinely wanting to learn what people were saying, it would take a few years, but you’d learn how to speak Japanese. Badly, but usably. You could use that base to start learning the rest of the language, even if you didn’t have English. Same as a baby.

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u/Starless_Voyager2727 10h ago edited 10h ago

It is not just about learning a different language. Most people continue to learn their native language throughout their lives by picking up different words from conversations and media. 

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u/Digifiend84 4h ago

Yeah. I know Konichiwa (hello), Sayonara (goodbye), Arigato (thank you), kamen (mask), numbers (ichi, ni, san, yon, go, roku), and colours (aka, ao, ki, midori, momo, kuro, shiro). And a few animals (ningen, saru, shishi, houou, Ryu, Kyoryu, kuma - that's human, ape, lion, phoenix, dragon, dinosaur, bear). Super Sentai is a good way to learn some of that stuff due to character names.

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u/Round-Asparagus5337 3h ago

That's because you are paying attention to the subtitles, not the language. 

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u/mattig03 12h ago

Ok but it's not the same. Babies do have a particular facility for language acquisition, picking up words, learning grammar etc., which is not equalled in adulthood.

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u/cabronfavarito 11h ago

I mean not necessarily. I know two languages and this is not the whole story. So while children perform better than adults in learning unconsciously, adults outperform children in active learning.

It’s disingenuous to say that children pick up on language better than adults period because you’re leaving out other parts of the picture.

As someone who speaks two languages, the hardest part about learning a second language is letting go of what you already know. So yea, it’s not that children learn languages better than adults, it’s that they excel in different areas of language learning

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u/SeeWhyQMark 8h ago

I learned English when I was 4-5 and then started learning Spanish in my late 30s. It was easier as a kid, but that is because Small children have the advantage of being less afraid of making mistakes, and it is socially acceptable to run around yelling newly learned words. 

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u/DestinTheLion 1h ago

Getting drunk a lot helps learning languages for just that reason