Do new born babies understand all languages when they're first born or just the native language?

Answer 1

Newborn babies do not understand any language at birth!

It takes years for a child to grasp the basics of language. If you want your child to learn multiple languages, teach them when they are young. It is easier for them to pick up the new language.

But babies won't even talk until they are about 18 months old, and even then it is just sounds and usually not words.


Jeffrey

Answer 2

Newborns and babies don't understand the language of words, yet. They recognize the sound of their mother's voice and the voices of family members. They can hear sounds in the womb. They are exceptional at interpreting tones and inflections. They tend to like softer muted sounds because that is what they heard while in the womb. Eventually, through play, loving tender care and lots and lots of talking to, they learn the language of the mother, then other languages of the family. When very very young they can pick up several languages but tend to use them all together at once. Then they start to associate words with a certain person. They don't know the difference between languages until they are older.

Answer 3

I heard about some kind of research a long time ago. It claimed that if you just left a few babies in the wild and they all survived and thrived together, the language they would develop would be very similar to a certain dialect off-shoot of Latin. Like I said that was quite a while ago and I heard it in passing on the radio.
But I don't think they could ever prove this one unless they actually raised babies without any human interaction, and that obviously is immoral.

Answer 4

Newborn infants do not understand (as far as we can tell) any language, but learn languages quickly, most being able to articulate a few words by the time they are 18 months old. Infants exposed to two languages learn both without the problems associated with learning a "second" language, although they seem to learn both a little slower than an infant learning only one language.

Answer 5

Babies don't know squat when they are born. They may have a better comfort level with their 'native' languange, but that's just becuase they heard the intonations through their mother.

But babies / toddlers have an innate abiltiy to pick up language SUPER QUICK !! The years and decades after that is when we seriously loose the ability to acquire new and other languages.

I've been told that human babies pick up the language skills of any language equally.

Answer 6

Interesting query. And reports exhibit that kids uncovered to even three or 4 languages as kids, be trained to talk them every individually... Kids whose mum and dad have a local language of Chinese, however reside in America, be trained each, with no trouble. If they then moved to France they with no trouble be trained French, and many others. However there's a language window, wherein languages are with no trouble discovered by way of kids. And I cannot bear in mind while that "window" closes, after which the child ought to research the language as could any grownup.

Answer 7

New born babies dont understand any language when theyre born. As they get older, around 1 or 2, their language skills start to develop and they learn whatever language you speak to them. Around that time, they start losing their ear to other languages that aren't spoken to them, thats why its harder to learn a language once you get older, but children can pick up new languages very quickly.

Answer 8

Babies don't understand "language" they grasp voice inflection. It's not until they're a bit older that they start to put together correlations between a word (repeated ... Dada, Mama, cup, bath, water, food, etc) with the item that they learn to speak.

A child's brain is most able to absorb information before they turn 5 years old. It is during that time that they are most apt to learn multiple languages.

Answer 9

no, newborns don't understand any languages at all. babies are essentially born languageless. but they have an amazingly high (hundreds of times higher than adults) mental ability to learn.......be it from their environments, from adults, or simply from their own exploration of their immediate surroundings. babies also respond better to high pitched sounds, which explains why we're all innately programmed to talk "baby-talk" to babies. the best way to teach children to become multi-lingual is to begin as early as possible, because of reasons previously stated. this can explain why some babies who're adopted by parents of other nationalities end up speaking their adoptive parents' language, with no idea what their own native language sound like.

Answer 10

To my knowledge new born babies don't really understand language at all. They have the capacity to learn any they are adequately exposed to but don't understand them cognizantly. Babies understand tone more than verbal communication. They also have no spatial orientation. That's why you can play peek-a-boo with them. In their minds when they can't see something it doesn't exist. When it magically re-appears from behind the blanket they are thrilled.