Language Acquisition of Child

First language acquisition of child is the process of children in acquiring their first language or mother tongue. In this stage, the ability of children in acquiring language is influenced by two major factors that are internal (family) and external (environtment out side the home where children live in).

Babies are born with the ability to distinguish speech from other sounds they hear, even though they do not understand what it means. By the time children reach school age, they are speaking in complex sentences, having conversations, and understanding most of what they hear.

Children's brains are designed to help them learn language. From the time they are born, their brains register and process the sounds they hear. As a child's brain, thinking skills, and motor systems develop, so does his/her understanding and use of language to communicate. Underlying language development is the ability to think about the world, and explore it with vision, hearing, smell, touch, etc. As a child begins to make sense of the world through exploration, language is attached to those experiences. Language develops gradually, from single words at about twelve months to complex sentences at five years, and from simple concepts (juice, shoes) to those that are more abstract (frustrated, addition). School-age children continue to learn and use increasingly complex and abstract language.


From the phenomenon that we seen in every day, here is an interesting question (but people think it is natural phenomenon). However, I will try to explain it according to my experience when I was child. The question is “how the children learn their first language?’’ ‘’How do I acquire and learn my mother tongue?’’ To answer the question, I have asked my mother and father to get the information about the way I acquire and learn language when I was child. Then, here, I greatly describe about that.

First of all, When I was 10 month, I able to say some words but not perfect. The first word that I could utter is MA-MA and PA-PA. In this stage, I couldn’t say many words because I have a tendency to utter the words which have the same pattern of morpheme. Such as CU-CU (susu), MA-MAM (makan), MI-MI (minum), BO-BO (tidur), NE-NE (nenek), KA-KA (kakak).

Furthermore, My mother and father told me that I was categorized as a child who made a giant leap in acquiring and learn Bahasa Indonesia as my mother tongue. I able to say many words fluently and clearly when I was 1 years old. For example: I did not say any more MA-MAM for MAKAN, MI-MI for MINUM, PI-GI for PERGI, ATUT for TAKUT because I could say these words correctly that MINUM for MINUM, MAKAN for MAKAN, PERGI for PERGI, TAKUT for TAKUT etc.

Moreover, My father and mother told me that I able to speak bahasa Indonesia as my mother tongue when I was 2 years old because I lived around the people who used to speak in bahasa Indonesia rather than local language. At this age, I used to call my father by saying “Bapaknya Icha” not “Bapak” because I used to hear my neighbor called my father with that call then I imitated it. My neighbor called my father “Bapaknya Icha” because my brother’s name is Icha therefore they called my father so. Then, my parents explained to me that I should call my father with “bapak” so step by step I could understand. This is being an unforgettable moment that my parents used to tell me.

Finally, my parents told me that I could interact to another people actively because I understand what they mean when they tried to talk with me. I could answer the simple questions correctly.

For example:
Q = “bapakmu pergi kemana?”
A = “bapakku pergi ke kantor”
Q = “kamu mau pergi kemana?”
A = “main”
Q = “siapa nama kakakmu?”
A = “icha”