1. Teaching parrots to talk
All species of parrots have their owned body structure essential for imitating human voice. This is one of parrots’ abilities attracting trainers. Depending on the kind of parrots, the ability to imitate may vary. A parrot learns well before it become mature. At the age of 3-6 months old in nature, they begin to learn their natural behaviors from their parents and fellows. This is the perfect stage to teach them to talk.
Just like other singing birds, when they have enough nutrition, health, they sing more. Parrot is similar, so you should provide them appropriate diet and make sure that they have enough nutrition. Any parrots can talk, or talk nothing.
That parrots learn to talk is actually learning communication language. Researchs show that baby birds learn a communication language with their flocks and learn from their parents or older bird after they left their nests. And that they learn to talk is like learning a natural language of birds.
Baby parrots will listen to what you say and learn words you regularly repeat. They will begin to repeat words and phrases. Their first effort to imitate a word may be just a short and less flexible word. At first, it is hard for them to imitate. Therefore, they usually pronoun unclearly. But with your repeating, their pronunciation will become clearer and reach the best of parrots’ ability.
The place to teach your parrot must be quiet to prevent the distraction of the parrot. Teaching in unchangeable time helps parrots react and learn better. Parrots learn the best in the morning and evening. This is equivalent to the time of a day that they cheep or even scream in the morning to eat and gather in the evening to sleep. Hence, you should make a appropriate plan to teach them.
Teach parrot to talk
Interaction is essential for a parrot to learn to talk. You won’t receive good result if you leave a speaker emitting the repeated sounds of words. Your parrot learn from you, especially words that are related to foods, bathing, your presence. This means besides the words you want to teach, the images or action related to you will help your parrot learn and acquire better.
For example: Say “Hello” when you come to your parrot’s cage and repeat it every time you come to its cage though it doesn’t react yet. And say “Good bye” when you stop playing with it.
When your parrot speaks one word, imitate it and repeat that word, praise it by giving it a reward of its favorite food. This is the stimulation for your parrot to talk more. Give it a reward for each of its efforts to say somethings. If it mutters and trys to speak what you want it to speak, give it a reward. That word will be gradually spoken more clearly. Next stage, when your parrot speaks a word or phrase, don’t hurry to give it reward, you should wait until the word is spoken the most clearly then you give it a reward.
Your parrot sometimes learns some obscene words from someone esle teaches. You can delete those words by not reacting when your parrot says and not looking at it. Then repeat the word you want it to learn in order to distract it from these obscene words. Gradually, these bad words will be deleted.
2. Teaching parrots to communicate
In order to teach a parrot to talk, you have to teach it to speak the words you want in advance.
For example: I teach my parrot to speak “Hello”. Everytime I come to its cage, I repeat “Hello” several time. This will form a habit that everytime I come to my parrot’s cage I will say “Hello”. My parrot will imitate “Hello” from everytime I repeat. During the process, always give your parrot rewards for its efforts. Finally, your parrot will be able to speak “Hello” fluently and always say “Hello” for the rewards whenever you come to its cage. Next, I won’t say “Hello” anymore when I come to its cage because I’m sure that my parrot will say “Hello” when I come to its cage. Therefore, I will say “Xin chào” and my parrot will say “Hello” as it has been taught, then I click and give it rewards. Do the same on following days. When I come and say “Xin chao” and my parrot will reply “Hello”, then our lesson is finished.
Parrots learn to communicate and interact with their owners
Similarly, teaching my parrot to know its name is “Parrot”: You ask “What’s your name?” and It replies “Parrot”,… And with the above method, make a script to chain your questions into a topic. When performing in front of the audiences, you will get their admiration about your talent and your parrot’s intelligence without knowing that this is just a trick to teach your parrot to talk.