Scientists have been racking their brains for years, trying to figure out how we learn to talk. Now they have created a “child-bot” that can learn to speak like a baby.

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After a few minutes conversation with human “teachers”, the robot learns to understand the most frequently-heard syllables and is able to reproduce some basic words.

The study, published in the science journal PLoS One, has shed some light on how babies develop from babbling to saying their first words.

Scientists at the University of Hertfordshire in England built a three-foot-tall robot, which they christened DeeChee and which can reproduce any syllable in the English language.

The research used human volunteers to teach the robot simple words for colors and shapes.