If you asked a group of parents when their baby started talking, you’ll get some really different answers. What’s been outlined above is simply a basic guideline of what you should expect, just remember there are variations.
There are some ways that you can encourage your baby to talk, if they’re not talking by some of the above guidelines. The first thing to do would be to encourage the child to imitate what you do. Try smiling when the baby smiles, or laughing when the baby laughs. Making simple sounds like ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ can help the baby to come to terms with speaking, so that speaking actual words comes more naturally in the future.
Games are a great way to encourage the child to talk, too. Playing peekaboo with a child will help them to learn to imitate you, which in turn helps them understand how imitation works. This allows your child to understand that they need to start imitating other things, like language. The more you interact with your child through conversation, the more perceptive they will be to this communicating through words.
Babies generally start talking when they are about a year old. These words may not really be words but may sound something similar to it. In some cases the words may be quiet clear. For example, 'dada.' Children can really communicate non-verbally before they can even speak. They generally have the tendency to smile when they are really happy and cry over any kind of discomfort. Some of the most sounds and expressions created by them are really cute. They could go about talking and you don't even realise that they are actually speaking something that you don't understand. Some people term this as "Baby Talk". They go about making really cute expressions like cooing, gurgling, mimicking facial expressions and in the later stages; of course, they start to move towards the object, or pointing at it. Babbling generally takes place around three to four months of age and noises between eight to nine months.