Baby talk tips?

[wekanian]

I will have a 2yo character in my comic but I can't grasp how a 2yo talks and how to write the sounds they make (I am not native English speaker). So, any tips to write speech from 2 year-old child?

Also hello everyone who reads this!

Update: This character is actually an adult but magically de-aged. His knowledge ad cognitive will stay the same but his physical abilities will follow his body age. So, his speech is affected by it. He will know words that adults know but he will have problems to pronounce them perfectly.

[Kaydreamer]

Hello there!

Lots of 'please', 'thank you', and 'excuse me', if they're well raised. Babies and children memorise that very well, and will use it all the time. It's very sweet.

Simplified language. No 'big' words.

They'll often miss connective words. So "Look, that bus is yellow!" becomes "Look, look! Yellow bus!"

Try to find videos of toddlers talking, there have to be thousands of YouTube. They'll vary wildly, because developmental speed at that age can be all over the place, but you'll get a sense of how they speak.

[cherrystark]

Hello! I don't have kids yet, but I am an aunt. Two-year-olds are starting to learn sentence structure. They can speak simple sentences and depending on the child, baby "babble" with be mixed in understandable words. They are also good at parroting back words or phrases they hear adults or older children say. My two-year-old nephew likes to say "Yexa (Alexa), pay baby shark" to any electronic device. Young children also "cycle" through the letter sounds they can clearly say as they age. For example: instead of Terri, the child could pronounce it Teh-wee or Teddy.

Toddlers (and their families) will adopt a type of slang to communicate their needs. We started early asking my nephews if they wanted to be held, etc. When my oldest nephew was a toddler, his mom would ask "Can I hold you?" When he wanted to be held, he'd turn around and say "Hold you me!" to communicate his desire to be held.

[wekanian]

That's cute! Thanks for the insight! Baby slangs are cute!
Also, I was unclear with my question context, it's updated btw.
sweats profusely

[wekanian]

Ah, "thank you's, 'please's, and 'excuse me's are cute yess. And yea I start watching baby videos new

Also, I was unclear with my question context, it's updated btw.
sweats profusely

[Kelheor]

If the character was already an adult, I don't think they will have too much problems in pronunciation. Probably they won't be able to pronounce "r" and will either reduct it or say "w" or "l" instead; maybe they will also lisp, so again, problems with pronouncing "s" or "z" and say "th" instead. Basically imagine a person talking without a mouth full of teeth

[bulletcrucifixion]

Interesting topic ! I have babies ocs as well and also I love going through my characters childhood especially 2 to 5 y.o so this is definitely something to think about.

[darthmongoose]

Trying to remember what my niece was like at two... (She's five now).

My niece is autistic like me, so knew some surprising words like names of dinosaurs, but otherwise was probably pretty normal.
One thing was a lot of copying things she heard people say or heard on TV. The worst being "Oh my god!" But mostly it was things like "Oh no no no!" or "There they are!"
Her sentences were pretty limited overall to things like: "We are in the blue car.", "It's a diplodocus!" and "I am Hazel." So the main thing is, 2 year olds can't tend to connect sentences with "so", "because" or "and", and while they can comprehend concrete questions like "where?", "what?" or "who?", more abstract ones like "why?" or "how?" are beyond their ability. Mostly they don't ask questions so much as remark on things they see, imitate things they hear or draw attention to things they want. That said, I remember Hazel was capable of saying "Hazel happy!" and "I love [name]" (and she had a lot of love to give, she loved "Gran'ma" "Grandad" "Mammy" "Daddy" "Auntie Kate" "Luney" (the dog, Luna) and....Hazel! (on seeing herself in a mirror wearing all grandma's jewellery she exclaimed "Oh Gran'ma! I just love...Hazel!"))

Vocab-wise, they know a surprising number of names of colours, shapes, animals, vehicles etc. They just can't necessarily put them into a sentence more complex than "It's a [whatever]!" or "[object/thing] in/on [other thing]". So for example, when I showed her this illo I did for a tech conference:

Hazel called this "Stegosaurus on telly" (telly is a common British colloquialism for a TV), so you can see that there's a pretty sophisticated ability there to understand "stegosaurus", but the sentence structure is very simple. She could also say "in the water", so "ducks...in the water!" is a pretty plausible thing for a 2 year old to remark on.

One thing that was fun was if she didn't know what something complicated was called, she would combine words she did know. So one time I came to visit and I was wearing my headphones. She'd never seen headphones before, but since headphones go on your head, and she'd only seen me wearing them, she called them "Kate hat". So when she saw my brother wearing some a few days later she said "Ooh! Joe, Kate hat!" Another example was that she saw a sandcastle, and not knowing the word for one, she combined two words she did know to create "Seaside tower". I have no idea if this is a normal 2 year old thing or just Hazel, but it was super-cute.

[eloquent]

Hi, linguistics nerd here! Most people covered the basics of the "simple sentence" phase and the words they learn first. And @Kelheor was brilliant for bringing up the fact that our "r" in English is the last sound that young kids learn!

They learn bilabial sounds (you make them with both lips: ma, ba, pa) first and then slowly work backward in their mouth from there (labio-dental, dental, alveolar, etc). I don't expect you to know these words, but if you have time, look into some basic International Phonetic Alphabet/sound chart resources.

Here's a link showing you what order and what age a child learns each sound!

[wekanian]

Yessss! Thank you so much! Definitely the pointers I need for this character speech! Thank you so much!!

[wekanian]

Wow you got great memory to remember how she spoke when she was 2!

[wekanian]

Lol yes those are big words for me but thanks for introducing me those terms! I will know where to start researching more for this character’s speech! Thanks for the link too!

[wekanian]

Toddler characters are challenging haha. We got great answers here btw

And you definitely should check out @eloquent ‘s link. I believe it will help a lot with children characters.

[eloquent]

Thank you for taking my word-dumping in stride! I hope you find it interesting, I love childhood language acquisition a LOT and it helps me relate to my younger characters a lot more

[gabriellabalagna]

My goddaughter is two. Here's just a little insight on her speech.

• she can say words that are one to two syllables long
• she can put together about three word sentences
• she refers to herself by her name, not as me or I
• she talks with few words, often things like "no" or "this one"
• she has phrases that she uses a lot
• she can say about half of her relatives names, but not people with lengthy names

Let me know if there's any more specific questions you have. 🏻

[therosesword]

This may seem odd but... does he need to talk?

The reason I say this is because my uncle, who, as an adult became a doctor and later got his law degree plus graduated from medical school with honors, didn't speak until he was four. And when he did (according to my father) everyone had to run and find the dictionary.

He was the baby of 5 and was doted on by his sisters, mom, aunts etc. so all he had to do was pretty much point at things and he got what he wanted.

don't know if that would work for your character but... sure makes my uncle blush when his siblings remind him.

[wekanian]

Oooh she must be so cute!!

Thanks for sharing! And yes what I am looking for is more specific, as the character is actually an adult but magically de-aged. He will have knowledge of an adult but physical abilities will be restricted to his body age.

[wekanian]

Yep, he needs to talk. So the character is actually an adult, magically de-aged. His knowledge and cognitive stay the same but his physical ability will be restricted to his body age :3

[wekanian]

The link you shared really helps!

[therosesword]

I understood that in your initial explanation, I just thought I'd relay my uncle as a possible alternative if ... and only if... you were seeking one. As a side note... "just point, Eddie," was a standard family joke. Poor guy, one of the most brilliant minds I've ever known. lol.