When do children start to talk? If you ask a group of parents when this happened, most will say "around twelve months of age". They will probably even remember what the children said. Many parents keep a diary of their child's "first words"
We can never predict what a first word is going to be. Often it's the name for "mummy" or "daddy", but it could just as easily be the word for an animal or a favorite toy. Everything depends on what has most caught the child's attention. But one thing is certain: after the first word, others come quickly. By 18 months, most children have learned about 50 words. By two, the total has risen to around 200.
Early words are actually one-word sentences. One of the first features（特征）of language a child learns well is to control the rise and fall of the voice to make the difference between stating and questioning. In English,daddywith a high rising tone（声调）means "is that daddy?"Daddywith a high falling tone means "There's daddy". Of course, only very basic meanings can be communicated using tones alone. So it soon becomes necessary to learn some grammar.
In English, grammar means learning to put words in different orders. Children have to see thatmummy pushis different frompush mummy. They start practising such changes at around 18 months. By two, they have learned the basic patterns of word order, and we hear them saying such things asman kick ballandwhere daddy go.
What are the parents doing all his time? They're acting as teachers and they always have an active role to play in their child's language learning.
