BBC 6分钟英语 婴儿是如何学会说话的

6 min English from BBC learning english dot com.

Hello. This is minutes English from BBC Learning

English. I'm Phil and I'm Georgie.

For most paren'ts, their baby's 1st word is a special moment.

This happens after an early stage of language development called babo, when a baby start making simple sounds like gah or mah, babies have to learn to use their mouth muscles to make specific sounds.

The experiment with different sounds and mouth shapes.

So what exactly is happening when babies start learning to speak?

What do you think? Georgie Well, phil, I'm no expert, but I imagine they watch the adults around them and kind of copy and imitate what they do.

What do you think? I definitely think that's what my children did when they were learning to speak.

Well, let's compare our ideas with those of an expert, professor, julian Pine from Liverpool University, speaking here on BBC Radio four.

And he lists the skills that babies develop in order to speak Well.

One of the 1st things the child has got to do is they've got to break down the speech stream into words.

Then they've got to link the words to the things that they refer to in the environment.

So they've got to learn what the word mean.

Right? In this program, we'll discover how babies learn to speak, and, as usual, will learn some useful new vocabulary.

And on the subject of words, remember, you can find a list of this program's vocabulary on our website, bbc learning english dot com.

Some people find it helpful to study the vocabulary before listening.

And another thing to do before listening is ask my question, georgie, we've mentioned the babbling noises that babies make when learning to speak, but what age does this usually start?

Is it A around six months old, B around nine months old, or C around one year old?

Okay, I think my best guess would be A around six months old.

OK Well, we'll find out a little bit later on in the program.

Let's return to Professor Pines list.

The 1st thing babies do is recognize where individual words start an end.

For this, it helps to know that in English, at least, words often begin with a stressed syllable, the sound in a word, which is emphasized by being spoken longer or louder.

Learning this takes time, and here, professor Pine and Michael Rosen, presenter of BBC radio falls program word of mouth, discuss children who haven't quite discovered it yet.

And we can see this in the kind of errors that children make, because little kids will often call the giraffe of bath bit by leaving off the unstress syllable, because that's not typical English.

Oh, and I've got example of this.

My son used to call a machine a smeege.

He just hit the stress. He didn't bother with the murpet.

Yeah, exactly why Ma thought it was my smeege.

Of course they yes. And the classic example, of course, is nana instead of banana.

Yes. I think I call them that.

One error or mistake infants make is calling a giraffe a rough because they cut off the 1st syllable, G because it's not stressed.

The classic example of this is when children say nana instead of Banana.

A classic example of something means, the best example of it, one containing all the features you expect such a thing to have.

E.g. ants are a classic example of animals working together.

The 2nd skill babies develop as they learn to speak is correctly linking a word to the object.

It refers to, in other words, knowing what the word means.

As adults, we do this without thinking.

But is actually much harder than it sounds.

As Professor Julian Pine explains to BBC radio fool programme word of mouth.

Well, we take for granted the fact that it's kind of obvious what words refer to in the environment, but actually, if you, if you look at it from the child's point of view, it's really difficult to work out what a word refers to, because there's so many things it could refer to.

So, you know, the speech signal is very ambiguous.

How does the child know that you're talking about the cop in front of you or the pen in front of you?

When you say fan? Or As adults, we take it for granted that when a friend says Apple, they mean that round red thing on the table.

To take it for granted means to assume something without question.

But for a baby, the link between the word apple and the object is not obvious.

It's ambiguous meaning. It has more than one possible meaning.

Wow, who knew so much was going on inside babies sponge like brains as they soak up the sounds they hear?

Right? Phil, isn't it time to reveal the answer to your

question? Um, it is indeed. The question was, at what age do babies start to make babbling noises?

And I

said it was around six months, and that is the correct answer.

Baby start to do this when they were about six months old.

OK? Let's recap the vocabulary that we've learned, starting with babble, the meaningless noises babies make as they're learning to speak.

The stress syllable in a word, is the sound, which is emphasized by being longer, louder or higher.

An error is a mistake. The classic example of something is the most typical example of it containing its most important features.

If you take something for granted, you accept or assume it without question.

And finally, the adjective ambiguous means having more than one possible meaning.

Once again, our 6 min are up, but if you're ready for more, you'll find the worksheet with a quiz and a transcript for this program on our website.

See you there soon by by 6 min English from BBC Learning english s dot com.

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