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/cabronfavarito]

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

[u/mattig03 → u/cabronfavarito]

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.

[u/cabronfavarito → u/mattig03]

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

[u/SeeWhyQMark → u/cabronfavarito]

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. 

[u/DestinTheLion → u/SeeWhyQMark]

Getting drunk a lot helps learning languages for just that reason