Map out a future with other languages

Babies map new sounds effortlessly…

Everyone knows that babies don’t just communicate through irresistible eye contact and cute facial expressions – from the very start of life they have an innate desire to learn and use language.  

In the early weeks and months, even though they may not produce anything that’s recogniseable as speech, they are listening carefully to the sounds other people make, analysing them and putting them into categories on a developing mental sound map. 

Research tells us that in the first six to eight months of life, babies have an incredible ability to distinguish every sound in every one of the world’s languages. They listen with a totally open mind, ready and able to hear & learn the sounds of any language that they might happen to be born into and grow up in. They will never be more naturally open to language sounds than at this point.

… while adults need to work harder

As adults, we can only dream of having ears this sharp. As many people who’ve learned a language later on have found, it’s not always possible to hear – let alone pronounce – the sounds that we are trying to master, and certainly not with the effortless quality we’d like to project!

As adults, we have become so specialised in our own language’s sounds that at times we can’t hear a new sound for what it is, instead making a ‘best fit’ to the closest sound on our own internal sound map.

That nearest pigeon-hole may not really be near enough, but it’s the best we can do. The mismatch could mean that we misunderstand something as a result. When it comes to pronouncing new sounds, adult learners can tend to produce sounds closer to the ones on their own map, rather than the sound that’s needed – giving rise to a strong accent in the language they’re trying to speak.

As an example, many non-native speakers of English don’t have short i sound such as in the word ship or hit on their sound map (it doesn’t exist in their language), so they will use something they do have instead – a long i, say, which means they would say something closer to sheep or heat.

A wider internal sound map makes for better language learning

The advantage of having a wider and more flexible sound map is clear – a broader range of possible sounds that you can hear and say – giving you a better ear and better pronunciation in a new language.

Back to babies: it turns out that the process of becoming specialists in the sounds of their own language is happening during their first year – by 10 to 12 months they are losing the ability to tell apart close pairs of sounds in other languages. They are focusing in on the sounds they’ve heard used often – and their ability to tell apart other speech sounds decreases through lack of use.

Take advantage of your baby’s openness to sounds

Studies have shown that people who were spoken to in one language during their early months and who were then adopted abroad and brought up in a totally different language environment had a better ability as teenagers to learn those ‘lost’ language sounds compared to people who had never heard the language before. This indicates that being exposed to speech sounds in early life has long-lasting effects that help language-learning later on. 

So it makes sense to broaden the range of sounds that our babies hear and interact with during their first months… especially in a way that makes the process motivating. 

How can parents do this? One way might be to arrange for native speakers of other languages to play, talk and sing to their baby – this could be through a friend, at a nursery or in a dedicated language group – or by introducing a language themselves through rhymes and songs, which babies find engaging and fun.

The right resources can help

Not everyone is lucky enough to be able to allow their baby to interact with native speakers, but would still like to introduce their baby to another language from an early age. For those parents, carefully thought-out materials and resources can help.

Spanish 0+ by Baby Listen is a fun and inspiring resource to help parents introduce Spanish – through its sounds and rhythms – to the smallest listeners. 

The engaging mix of beautiful melodies with warm and expressive voices from Spain is instantly baby friendly, while at the same time appealing to parents – who’ll soon be humming the tunes and singing the songs. That parental interest and the element of melody & song can help baby to treat Spanish as something more important and motivating.

If Spanish is your thing, you can start to take advantage of your baby’s window of opportunity for language sounds right now with an instant download.

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