(2) The sounds invented by the child are used by the parents and other people in their communications with the child. They select from the large number those which are like speech sounds of their own language. They address the child with these words again and again, forming also brief sentences, and thus stimulate the child to produce at will the words which he has at his command, in these combinations and sentences. The child thus becomes more and more skillful in the production of these words. Meanwhile the numerous other baby words which have no significance for the people surrounding him, are gradually lost from the child’s mind, so that later they can no longer be produced voluntarily. Practically every child can, on the basis of his articulating instinct, learn any language spoken anywhere on earth. But in later years, when this instinct has weakened and has been replaced by the habit of producing the sounds of a particular language, it is a difficult matter to learn to speak a new language. The sound perception as well as the sound production is then assimilated to the “native” speech, and the words of the foreign language are consequently spoken in a manner similar to the words of the native language. This is meant when we say that foreign languages acquired in adult life are, as a rule, spoken with an “accent.” The activity of grown people influences the child’s talking in yet another way. The child hears those words which are selected by the people surrounding him, usually in the presence of the persons and things and events for which the words serve as symbols. Thus new associations are formed. To the kinesthetic and auditory word images is added imagery of the word’s meaning. The child comes to experience the words as symbols and to reproduce ideas of the words when the things appear as percepts or images. Only then can we say that the child has really learned to speak, to express his perceptions, his images, and his feeling and willing in speech.