IndianRingNeck.com

Crazy my ringneck spent a year trying to say hello. One day she said it perfectly, her first word! I was so happy, and I gave her lots of treats and praise. After her first hello she never talked again, did not even attempt In the four years following this hello the only thing she has mimicked are cat-calls

Hi, l have a Alexandrine and when l first got her she said "Hallo" sveral times and l repeated it but since then she has said nothing. I have this theory that if they are left alone they will talk, like whistling in the dark just to cheer themselves up but as soon as you give them attention they stop talking.
Crazy can tell you so much more in her own way and it is a lot more fun trying to work out what she is saying rather than her just repeating some words!
AJPeter

if you got a bird because you wanted it to talk, then you could be disappointed. I got a bird because I like birds.

Zentoucan you are absolutely right, birds and our Alex tell so much more by their body language. I do not want a bird that mimics human words. Who can hold a conversation with a parrot on the basis of "Who's a pretty boy?" Billie tells me what she wants and understand what I want all through body language mine and hers.

By the way are you going to teach your Alex to type?

AJPeter
what you want doesn't come into it. one day, out of the blue, Billie might say "hello Billie". Because birds mimics sounds that they hear repeatedly. When I remove the cage covers from Delfin and Bluey's cages I say "good morning" to them, when I go to work I say "Good Bye" and when I come home I say "hello" when I give them food I say what the food is like "corn". Now I know there is a possibility that neither Delfin or Bluey will ever speak back to me and I'm fine with that. but there is a chance that they might. There are words I know Delfin and Bluey understands and that is "come on Delfin" and "no". But Delfin or Bluey can't say these words. it doesn't matter if Delfin or Bluey don't talk I rather they understand basic words. especially "come on" and "no"

One of my friend's male eclectus parrot can mimic the phone ring perfectly but doesn't talk. I should have called Delfin "Chewbacca"

Oh Billie understands what l say to her, No and Naughty, come here, step up and step down and other commands she will make a bird cry sound when l go to her in the morning, and when l come back from going some where she makes bird calls becasue she is pleased to see me, it is being able to understand what they are sying and helpting them to understand what l am say that makes it so fascinating. I expect Bluey and Deflin make bird calls to you that you understand?

Sanjay talks so quietly, if there is noise going on you could easily miss it, I have never deliberately set out to teach him, as with most things I take a laid back attitude, so the words he uses are self learned. His noises are interesting, I know his "thank you" noise, and his "ahem" when he wants attention, also, the yum sounds when he's eating something he loves, I think one of the reasons Sanjay has been slower than some companion birds, is because we had his earlier cages beside a window, and the wild birds were far more fascinating to him than we were. As Peter (AJ) rightly says, much communication comes from body language, and actions can certainly speak louder than words!.