Reading Comprehension All human beings can learn a language. And all babies learn language the same way. It doesn’t matter what language they are learning. Babies can learn any language, but in fact, they learn the language that is around them. At first, babies make only one kind of sound: crying. Parents pay attention when a baby cries. That’s how parents and babies begin to communicate with each other. Soon babies begin to make other sounds. They can laugh and make happy sounds called “cooing.” These sounds encourage parents to talk to them, and the babies learn more about language. By the time they are two months old, babies hear and understand things better. For example, they can tell the difference between human voices and other sounds. They can recognize their mother’s voice. In the next few months, their listening skills improve quickly. They can recognize different spoken sounds. For example, babies can hear the difference between “pa” and “ba”. When they are about six months old, babies begin “babbling.” This means they make sounds like “mamama” or “bababa.” The babies make the sounds to learn how to use their mouths, they usually aren’t trying to communicate anything to anyone. In fact, babies often babble when they are alone. At first, the babbling sounds are the same for all babies everywhere. But soon each baby begins to practice just the sounds they hear in the language around them. Children start using words when they are about one year old. At first, they use just one word at a time. Often they do something at the same time to explain their meaning better. For example, a child says “Up,” and she holds out her hands. The parent understands that she wants to be picked up. When they are about eighteen to twenty-four months old, children begin using two-word sentences. A child might say “Train come.” He means “The train is coming.” By the time they are two or three years old, children can say longer sentences. For example, they might say “No sit there” or “Car make noise.” These are not complete sentences, but they already follow the rules of grammar. By the time they are six, children know a lot about language. They may still make mistakes, but they usually make good sentences and questions. And if they know two languages, they almost never speak the wrong language with someone.