Talking Issues

[Mango]

Hi my fellow IRN lovers, This is my first post here so i am hoping that someone can help me. I have a Lutino male IRN called Mango. He is absolutely adorable and i love him to bits. He is nearly 15 months old. My question is around his vocalization. He is an expert whistler and is able to pick up all my whistles and tunes almost instantly, although when it comes to talking, his words dont seem to be getting clearer. When i left him for 3 weeks in August at the breeders while i was on holiday, he picked up a whole heap of words such as "Good Boy", "Whatya doing", "come here" etc but none of these words are clear and only i can understand them. I keep using these words with him but they are still as muffled as they were 3 months ago. I am wondering if with age his speech will get clearer. He definitely seems like a gifted talker because he picked up these words in 2 days from the other parrots.
Look forward to your responses.
BTW, love this site and love reading about peoples experiences. Maybe someday i will know enough to contribute as well.
Thanks,

[Donovan]

They learn great from other birds. They'll only mimic something if they like the sound of it. My bird learned most of his vocalizations from other birds on youtube. Which I wish I hadn't done because his own vocalizations were more pleasant sounding. But one day I said "peekaboo" to him and he was completely amazed by that word and was saying it himself a day later.

Some of those birds are foreign and I suspect my bird says a few non english words now ... haha.. i wonder what they are.

here's the playlist I leave for my bird to watch during the day sometimes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH5_WVMR ... hGlf9iltK9

[Rottn1964]

I wonder if the Ringneck responds best to female voices. My 14 month male has an increasing vocabulary. Give me a kiss... Give me kisses... thank you... com'on, step up.... whatcha doin? All learned from me.... but my husband has been saying "i'm a devil bird" repeatedly for a very long time. He REFUSES to say it. My husband and Blueberry don't always see eye to eye!

[Donovan]

yes they respond better to female voices because of the higher pitch

[InTheAir]

Rottn, I'm not surprised blueberry doesn't want to say that Our bird has learnt words from both myself and my boyfriend.
I expect if you responded to your husband saying devil bird every time, your bird might pick it up as a way of getting attention.
I have been repeating "want to come out" every time I let Nila out for over a year and he still doesn't say it. He learnt to call my boyfriend by name in about 10 minutes just by me modelling it and my boyfriend answering from another room. The same happened with my name, but it was not intentional and it took us ages to work out that he was trying to say Claire. He calls me "Aair".

[AJPeter]

I cannot get Bille to talk when l first got her she said "Hallo" and l repeated that but then she stopped talking, in the pet shop where l was manager we had a big old Macaw and he would only talk when he was bored if he spoke and people went up to him he stopped talking. I wonder if l let left Billie alone more often would she talk? But l am not worried she does not talk, because she has her own way of telling me what she wants, and the fun is working out what she is saying.
AJPeter

[Mango]

Hi guys, thank you for all your responses. I guess I have a few limitations that I just cannot address. A) I am a male and so can't do a high pitch female voice B) I live on my own and do not have anyone to talk to that mango can immitate. I did watch on a video yesterday and this might no apply to Ringnecks but might answer one one of the points raised that some parrots immitate because they want your attention and so when they see that when you talk to someone else in the house such as your spouse and that creates a response or attention for your spouse, they learn that if they use the same words they too get the response and hence you might notice the parrot imitating a word that you use with someone else. I think this is a great way to teach a bird to talk by simply repeating a word to your partner and have a desirable response. Unfortunately I can't do that since I live alone. I might try playing another bird perhaps an African grey with a clear speech to Mango and see if that works. He does respond to other bird sounds so it might work.

[InTheAir]

Honestly, I don't find ringnecks to be super clear talkers anyway, there are a couple on youtube that are.
I'd just enjoy the fact that he tries.
Btw my boyfriend does a cockatoo voice, which Nila goes crazy for. Nila usually tries to climb into the boyfriends mouth to find the 'too!

[ellieelectrons]

My two have an okay vocabulary and we are the only ones that can understand them - I doubt they'll ever speak clearly. I regret that I can't whistle a tune because I have a feeling our Janey would be able to whistle a tune really well. They have picked up words phrases from both me and my husband (and each other).

Ellie.

[Rottn1964]

I think Blue(berry) is a pretty clear talker as well... a bit nasaly but I certainly can understand phrases when he says it. Alot of things he says can be jibberish until he perfects it and then says it really clearly. I love when he says "com'on" step up cause its EXACTLY as I say it when I am getting him to step up, especially if he doesn't want to and I repeat it several times. Makes me chuckle everytime. I'll have to start the peek-a-boo thing. Seems like that might be an easy one for him.

[Rottn1964]

Oh.. and once when I was holding him he actually said give me a kiss... then when I kissed him on the beak he made the kissy sound and said thank you. He says those phrases A LOT but... never when we are actually doing it. Its usually me. I thought that was hilarious... but that was just one time.

I really do believe there is some understanding around what they are saying. He does not say "Whatcha doin? UNLESS I am doing something that he can see. Then he gets nosy. Not sure if he understands.. but I always tell him what I am doing Nosy bird LOL