How to Teach Parrots to Talk

Most parrot owners in different parts of the world at some point in their life dream of having a parrot that can respond to their questions. You can turn this dream in to reality if you teach a parrot to talk. Parrots are birds that are different from most other birds because of their excellent hearing capacity and superb physiology that is better than those of most other birds.

It is however important to note and keep in mind that some parrots may never learn how to talk because of the simple that they are birds and not humans. Just the way the people have different capabilities, the birds differ in their capabilities.

As much as you may want to teach a parrot to talk, it is important to note and keep in mind that some parrots may be quick in their learning while others may not. Do not buy a parrot for the main reason and intention of training it to speak because that may fail to happen in reality. In most cases however, your parrot will be able to imitate some few words without being trained by any person.

Which parrots are the right candidates for training?

Not all the parrots are the right candidates of speech training. The most suitable candidates are:-

1. Those that are kept very close to the human beings. These parrots can imitate what the human beings say. Most of these parrots are able to learn how to talk faster.
2. Parrots that are kept together with other parrots that already talk. Threes parrots can learn from their fellow birds. They are .likely to learn fast how to talk.
3. Some species of parrots that have been proven to be very quick in learning how to talk. These include African Gray, Amazon Species (Yellow-naped, yellow-fronted, blue-fronted, yellow-crowned, etc). These species of parrots are likely to learn how to respond and imitate at faster rate than the other species.

Which training method works best?

There are two major forms in which you can teach a parrot to talk. One way is the RESPONSIVE SPEECH and the other one is the IMITATIVE SPEECH. The responsive speech refers to the situation in which the trainer asks some questions and then the parrot is capable of responding to that question as though it is a human being.

Imitative speech refers to that situation in which the trainer says some thing and then the parrot is capable of imitating it either in the exact or very close to the original sound produced by the trainer. Most people would want to offer responsive speech training to their parrot but the sad fact is that it is not very easy to come by.

In all cases, you have to begin the training by the imitative speech. You have to train the bird how to imitate the very simple words. If you begin the training by offering very complicated words and vocabularies then the parrot may never learn to mimic or respond.

In the responsive speech, to teach a parrot to talk you need to begin the training by very simple word like ‘hello’ or ‘hi’. Your parrot is not human being so do not expect to converse the way a human being would do. Teach it the very simple words and mimics and it will catch up. In all cases you need to be very patient. Do not train it to mimic or to respond to words that are complicated.