Ответ: Babies Can Lip-Read Languages

Can you distinguish between spoken English and French? Most people can. But can you tell the difference between an English and a French speaker just A ________? It seems like a difficult task for an adult, but it’s a very easy one for a baby at just a few months of age.

Scientists proved that B ________. In these clips, speakers were reading out the same sentence in one of the two languages. The babies were shown different videos C ________. The same speakers were reading out new sentences, some in English and some in French.

When the languages of the new sentences matched those of the old ones, the infants didn’t react unusually. But they spent more time looking at the monitors D ________. This is a classic test for child psychologists, and it means that the infants saw something that drew their attention. They noticed the language change.

Scientists found that the babies have this ability at 4 and 6 months of age, E ________. Other studies show that around the same time, babies stop hearing differences in sounds from other languages.

At first, babies are good at noticing details in many languages, F ________, they focus only on the one they hear most – usually their native language. To check this, the researchers tested babies who knew two languages. Sure enough, bilingual 8-month-olds could still tell English and French apart by watching lips.