In the study in which researchers from countries including Korea, France, Italy, Belgium, Israel, and Argentina participated, the replies of the questionnaire that were drawn up by the mothers of 20 months old babies about the vocabularies their children use were utilized in this research. All the babies, consisting of 11 boys and 152 girls, were the first child of the families, were born as fully matured babies, and have been exposed only to one language. The researchers, handing out the questionnaires, asked the mothers to fill the list of the nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns, interrogatives, prepositions, and the modifications their children put to use.

In accordance with the result of survey, nouns are the most frequently used words in all the countries, and there weren’t any differences between the babies learning English, which emphasizes nouns, and Korean, which emphasizes verbs. All the babies of each language circles are aware of nearly 300 nouns in average, including words indicating animals, toys, and body parts. In addition, as for the verbs, about 100 words designating actions such as “play” were understood by the babies.

The numbers of pronouns known to the babies are approximately twenty including, “I”, “He”, and “She”. “There was a universal order to how children learn languages,” said Dr. Marc Bornstein, who led the research, explaining that the reason babies learn nouns first are that the nouns can be seen and touched, and are concrete things. He pointed out that the verbs and adjectives are more abstract, and might be too complicated for babies to understand.

Dr. Duane Alexander, director of the NICHD, assessed the meaning of this research by saying, “By learning about the normal progression of language development, we may be able obtain information that will help children who are having difficulty learning language.” The result of this research was inserted in the July-August issue of the scientific magazine, “Child Development.”

(englishnews@chosun.com )