It is everyone agrees, a huge task that the child performs when he learns to speak, and the fact that he does so in so short a period of time challenges explanation.
每个人都同意，孩子学说话是一项艰巨的任务，而孩子们在短时间内做到这一点的事实对解释提出了质疑。
Language learning begins with listening. Individual children vary greatly in the amount of listening they do before they start speaking, and late starters are often long listeners. Most children will “obey” spoken instructions some time before they can speak, though the word obey is hardly accurate as a description of the eager and delighted cooperation usually shown by the child. Before they can speak, many children will also ask questions by gesture and by making questioning noises.
语言学习始于听力。每个孩子在开始说话之前的聆听量差异很大，而晚开始说话的孩子往往是长时间的听众。大多数孩子在说话前一段时间会“服从”口头指令，尽管“服从”这个词很难准确地描述孩子通常表现出的渴望和愉快的合作。在他们说话之前，许多孩子还会通过手势和发出提问的声音来提问。
Any attempt to trace the development from the noises babies make to their first spoken words leads to considerable difficulties. It is agreed that they enjoy making noises, and that during the first few months one or two noises sort themselves out as particularly indicative of delight, distress, sociability, and so on. But since these cannot be said to show the baby’s intention to communicate, they can hardly be regarded as early forms of language. It is agreed, too, that from about three months they play with sounds for enjoyments, and that by six months they are able to add new sounds to their repertoire. This self-imitation leads on to deliberate imitation of sounds made or words spoken to them by other people. The problem then arises as to the point at which one can say that these imitations can be considered as speech.
任何试图追踪婴儿从发出声音到第一次说话的发展都会带来相当大的困难。人们一致认为，他们喜欢发出声音，在最初的几个月里，一两种声音会特别代表喜悦、痛苦、社交等。但由于这些声音不能说表明婴儿有交流的意图，它们很难被视为早期的语言形式。人们也一致认为，从大约三个月起，他们就可以用声音来娱乐，到六个月后，他们就能够在语音库中添加新的声音。这种自我模仿会导致故意模仿别人对他们发出的声音或说的话。然后，问题在于什么程度上这些模仿可以被视为言语。
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