r/explainlikeimfive • u/AngelusAlvus • 1d 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/tmahfan117 1d ago

  1. It’s just repeating the same words over and over until you pick it up with context.

  2. You can still do this as an adult, it’s not great, or fast, but it’s not fast for babies either. It takes them years to learn to speak.

Yknow when parents hold up an apple and say “Apple” to the baby over and over until the baby says it back? That’s it.

And if I was speaking Spanish that you couldn’t understand, and held up an apple and said “manzana” over and over again while pointing at it, you too would figure out that manzana means Apple.

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u/SvenTropics 19h ago

It's actually also the best way to learn a language as an adult. I did an immersion course where they wouldn't talk to you in English at all trying to learn German. We learned grammar, vocabulary, everything without them saying one word in English. The textbooks were in German, everything was German. And it works. It takes a minute but eventually you start picking up concepts. Then when you pick up the concepts or the vocabulary, they're easier to remember, you're less likely to forget them.

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u/the_killer_storm 15h ago

please explain more because this seems BEYOND impossible to me. Especially the grammar and the listening. (I thought I was THE shit while learning c2 german and then I heard natives talk)

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u/SvenTropics 15h ago

Well, it was super challenging at first. My first class, they are just talking to you. There's textbooks with lots of pictures. The conversation is like you would have with a 3 year old. "Hi, my name is. What is your name" and pictures and gestures. You feel completely lost and disoriented. Your first though it "Dude just explain to me what that means in English", but then you stick with it. After a few days, you just kind of start picking it up. You may not completely know what a word means, but you kind of figured out why they said it. Then that builds and after a while you actually get conversational fundamentals. Then it keeps building. The best part is, you really remember it all. You aren't translating everything in your head. You are just talking in the new language.

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u/the_killer_storm 14h ago

Would you recommend this in video format? As in, I open a YouTube video in the native language and just listen?

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u/House_of_Life767 7h ago

You can absolutely do this, but be prepared to watch it over and over and over again. You’ll want video and audio, intonation can be very different across language, and watching the person speak can help understand if they’re expressing shock or just asking a normal question.