The study reports some preliminary observations of 5 Chinese children acquisiting Mandarin as their native language. Longitudinal studies were conducted biweekly, and at some points weekly, to tape record naturalistic observations of the linguistic activities of the subjects, over the duration from the subjects babbling stages (35 weeks, 38 weeks, 58 weeks, etc.) to a fully communicative stage (156 weeks) outside their homes. We discuss the overlapping emergence of repetition, immitation, naming, as well as the correct use of personal pronouns and possessive personal pronouns in Mandarin Chinese. Above all, we also discuss subjects' individual variation over each above-mentioned linguistic phenomenon and the course each subject took to acquire these structures. Despite the overwhelming individual variation, these subjects appear to have acquired Mandarin sufficiently by age 3 (156 weeks). It seems to provide evidence that an innate ability is being triggered and flourished regardless of differences over the seemingly sporadic linguistic data we obtain.
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