Experiment 5: Babbling

Ditto the donkey is just starting to speak English. Although he can recognise a lot of words, he's only just beginning to speak and is having difficulty in expressing himself. Like a human baby, he's experimenting by making sounds that he hopes you'll understand, but he isn't speaking real English yet. This stage of child language acquisition is known as babbling, and takes place in the first year or so of life.

It may help if you use baby talk with Ditto in this experiment. Try to understand what he's trying to say, and say it back to him in proper English. This will help him to learn by imitating you.

Some of what Ditto says will be completely unintelligible, like a foreign language; for example, "Kne wone mer foop!" Sometimes he'll manage some English words mixed in with nonsense; for example, "St vel the tankey you." Sometimes he'll put together some real words but it won't be grammatical; for example, "You're be don't?" And very occasionally, he may actually speak a proper English sentence. Praise him if he does!

Although Ditto will learn quickly from things you say, he'll also forget them quickly, so don't expect him to remember a previous conversation with you.

Ditto was last trained on 16 October 2006.

We're logging your messages and we'll use them as a source of training examples. However, you can't be identified as an individual, so feel free to say whatever you like. Please interact with Ditto and help him to learn!

Experiment 5: Babbling

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