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It seems as though at some point or another, most children become fascinated by parrots. Maybe it's the parrot's association with the pirates of legend, or their seeming intelligence due to their sometimes amazing vocabulary. Many of these children grow into adults who keep their fascination, and who want to see it fulfilled by owning a parrot who can carry on conversations with them for hours on end.
Of course, parrots can't really "talk", per se... the speech that parrots learn is just a bunch of sounds that the parrot learns to mimic, especially in response to certain stimuli (either other sounds, or the ringing of a telephone, or an offer of food.) Whether or not it's true speech doesn't really matter, though... it's still amazing. But if you want your parrot to learn how to say what you want it to say, you're going to need to do a bit of work with it first.
The first thing that you'll need is the right kind of parrot. The two best kinds of parrots for teaching them how to talk are the African Gray parrot and the Amazon parrots from South America... these two types of parrots are among the best mimics in the bird world. Once you've got your parrot picked out, then it's time to begin it's training.
Most parrots seem to find it easier to mimic women and children, since they have a slightly higher register to their voice... the deeper voice of a man can be a bit more difficult to copy. Add to that the fact that individual birds vary in their ability to learn and mimic new sounds, and it can be a bit frustrating at first to attempt to train a parrot to talk. Luckily, there is a tool that makes training the parrot a lot easier... a light switch.
Turn of the lights so that the room where you and the parrot are is very dark... that way, the only thing that the parrot will be able to focus on is the sound of your voice. This keeps the bird from becoming distracted by anything that it sees... something that's all too common of an occurrence for most birds. Once the lights are out, say clearly and calmly the phrase that you want the parrot to learn... it may attempt to mimic what you say, or it may not. Keep working with the bird, repeating the phrase and giving the parrot time to respond. It may take a while, but eventually the parrot will attempt to mimic what it's hearing. Keep working with it, and it will eventually learn the words that you're trying to teach it.
Parrots can also learn to associate certain words that they have learned with certain actions. If you teach your parrot to mimic the word, "hello", and the parrot hears you say the word whenever you pick up the phone, then it may start saying "hello" whenever the phone rings. The same goes for when you come home from work... teach it to mimic "hello", and then say hello to it whenever you get home; eventually, the parrot will associate your return with the word, and will greet you at the door.
Just remember that parrots can also learn to mimic things that it hears at random... watch what you say around the bird, or it may say some rather embarrassing things at inappropriate times!
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