Imagine what it is like to hear language for the first time. No, really: imagine. Did you picture yourself in a crib listening to your mother? Understandable, but think again. We hear language before we are even born. As you will know from those noisy neighbours who drive you mad, sound passes through solid barriers – not just the walls of houses but also through the wall of the womb. And it has long been known that the human ear begins to function several weeks before birth, in the third trimester (or third) of pregnancy at about seven months (Sontag & Wallace, 1936). The foetus can respond to thesound of bells, and can even discriminate between different tones. But sensitivity to sound is not the same as sensitivity to language. Can the foetus distinguish noises, like a power drill or the banging of a door (those neighbours again), from the sound of their own mother’s voice? Remarkably, the answer is ‘yes’. Moreover, the foetus has already begun to recognize the distinctive properties of their native language (May, Byers-Heinlein, Gervain & Werker, 2011). The brain responses of newborn infants (0–3 days old) differ when they hear a foreign language (in this case, Tagalog from the Philippines) versus the language heard in the womb (English). Even more remarkable, the unborn baby can learn to recognize the telling of a particular story.