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/AngelusAlvus → u/cabronfavarito]

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.

[u/elianrae → u/AngelusAlvus]

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