How babies and young children learn to understand language

Pronunciation, vowel length, and allophones

• Long subthread on whether “ham” vs “hamster” have different vowel length or speed.
• Many speakers report they sound identical; others perceive a longer vowel in “ham” and a clipped one in “hamster.”
• Linguistically inclined commenters discuss:
  • Vowel length as part of pronunciation, even if non-phonemic in many English dialects.
  • Allophones like aspirated vs unaspirated /p/ (e.g., “pill” vs “spill”) that native speakers often cannot hear but can measure physically.
  • Dialectal variation (trap–bath split, Mary–marry–merry, Australian phonemic length, etc.).

How infants acquire language: supervision vs statistics

• Some argue babies are “highly trained” by parents via cues, prosody, and structured input, so calling it “unsupervised” is misleading.
• Others counter that explicit teaching is neither necessary nor sufficient; children reliably acquire natural spoken language regardless of formal instruction or parents’ conscious theories of grammar.
• Examples cited: private twin languages, pidgin→creole development, mismatch between taught grammar and actual spoken patterns.
• Skepticism toward infant “statistical learning” experiments:
  • Critiques of small effects, artificial tasks, and strong claims from weak data.

Chomsky, universal grammar, and statistical models

• References to Chomsky’s poverty-of-the-stimulus argument and hierarchy of grammar.
• One side: statistical learning alone is insufficient for children to infer hierarchical rules from limited input; universal grammar or biological constraints are needed.
• Other side: modern vector-based models (transformers, LSTMs) show that advanced statistical systems can capture much of grammar, possibly rivaling humans.
• Debate over test sentences where large language models mis-handle subtle binding, scope, or extraction ambiguities; disagreement on how probative these are and on what counts as “real” linguistic competence.

Adult language learning and “wall of sound”

• Many describe initial inability to segment spoken French (and other languages) despite understanding written form.
• Suggested strategies:
  • Massive listening (“comprehensible input”), often with subtitles.
  • Repetition of short dialogues until memorized.
  • Vocabulary building vs. relying on context; some prioritize vocab, others say speed and volume of input matter more.
• Strong emphasis on immersion, motivation, and ego-free practice; adults may match or exceed children if they put in enough hours.

Multilingual children and family strategies

• Multiple anecdotes of children raised with 2–4 languages:
  • Common strategy: “one parent, one language”; sometimes plus a school or environment language.
  • Kids often choose language by interlocutor and context, and occasionally mix words while applying the grammar of another language.
• Consensus that three or more native-level languages are possible but utility and consistent exposure heavily influence which ones “stick.”
• Some warn that elaborate person/place rules may be hard to maintain; children ultimately decide what they use with whom.

Baby sign language

• Proponents: early signing gives infants a productive vocabulary before speech, clearly delights them, and can ease daily communication.
• Skeptics: see it as unnecessary effort or a “parlor trick,” arguing babies already communicate effectively via cries and gestures.
• Others nuance: even ad-hoc signs (not formal sign languages) can be helpful, especially for speech-delayed children; effectiveness varies by child.

Writing systems and word boundaries

• Pushback on the article’s implication that spaces are necessary to mark words in writing.
• Commenters note historical and modern scripts (e.g., Chinese, Japanese, ancient Greek/Latin scriptio continua) that function without spaces, using characters, line breaks, or other cues instead.

Bilingualism and development

• Question raised whether early bilingualism helps or harms development.
• Thread includes many positive anecdotes of bilingual and multilingual children; no consensus data presented, but no clear harms described.