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Babies master complex language faster than adults
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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Everyone knows the amazing ability of small children to quickly learn languages. But how do they do it? After all, children who are not even a year old can neither read nor write, and do not know the rules.
As it turns out, children can already identify word boundaries from indirect indicators at an early age. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig have discovered the ability of three-month-old babies to automatically detect and learn complex probabilities between syllables in spoken language.
In comparison, adults are able to identify such transitions only if they are directly searched for.
The conducted research confirms the possibility of learning foreign languages in early childhood.
The speed and ease with which young children learn the basics of language amazes parents and scientists.
Of course, many people usually assume that learning complex languages is something that only adults can do, and that children will have a hard time grasping the grammar and vocabulary of a language. However, scientists Jutta Müller, Angela Friederici, and Claudia Mennel have found that children outperform adults in learning languages.
The experts conducted an experiment and for twenty minutes pronounced a stream of syllables to children, while measuring their reaction using electroencephalography.
When the specialists pronounced a multi-syllable word and intentionally made mistakes, the device recorded the children's reaction, which indicated that the kids recognized this violation.
Experts also note that when the emotional coloring of a word changed, namely one syllable, for example, the scientists pronounced it a tone higher, then those children who responded to the changes in tonality were able to detect the connection between syllables faster than the others.
In the course of the research, the scientists recruited adults and asked them to perform a similar task. The subjects demonstrated a reaction to the disruption of a coherent chain of syllables. Dr. Muller and his colleagues concluded that, apparently, the ability to automatically recognize, as in children, is gradually lost in adults.
"What we found particularly interesting was that a small group of adults who participated in the experiments also showed immediate responses to changes in pitch in words," the study authors say.
These data will make it possible to study in more detail the system of learning and understanding language in children at an early stage of development.
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