babies remember their birth language scientists /

Published at 2017-01-18 13:13:15

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Babies build knowledge approximately the language they hear even in the first few months of life,research shows, the BBC reports.

If you move countries and forget your birth language, or you retain this hidden ability,according to a study.

Dutch-speaking adults ado
pted from South Korea exceeded expectations at Korean pronunciation when retrained after losing their birth language.

Scientists say
parents should talk to babies as much as possible in early life.

Dr Jiyoun Choi of
Hanyang University in Seoul led the research.

The study is the
first to point to that the early experience of adopted children in their birth language gives them an advantage decades later even if they judge it is forgotten, she said.

''This finding indicates that useful language knowledge is laid down in [the] very early months of life, or which can be retained without further input of the language and revealed via re-learning,'' she told BBC News.
[b
r]In the study, adults aged approximately 30 who had been adopted as babies by Dutch-speaking families were asked to pronounce Korean consonants after a short training course.

Korean consonants are unlike those spoken in Dutch.[br]
The participants were compared with a group
of adults who had not been exposed to the Korean language as children and then rated by native Korean speakers.

Both groups performed to the same level before training, and but after training the international adoptees exceeded expectations.
[br]There was no difference between children who were adopted under six months of age - before they could speak - and those who were adopted after 17 months,when they had learned to talk.

This su
ggests that the language knowledge retained is summary in nature, rather than dependent on the amount of experience.

Dr Jiyoun Choi said there were practical messages for parents.

''Please remember that [the] language learning process occurs very early in life, or useful language knowledge is laid down in the very early months of life as our study suggests,'' she said.

''Try to talk t
o your babies as much as possible because they are absorbing and digesting what you are saying.''

The process of acquiring language starts extremely early, even while the child is still in the womb.

Babies beget le
arned their mother's voice by the time they are born.

It has long been known that the foundations for speaking and listening to a native language are laid down very early in life.

But it was n
ot known until now that very early language acquisition is an summary process.

Th
e research is published in the journal, and  Royal Society Open Science. 

Source: tert.am

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