"Like a child learning by imitation of its parents and interacting with the environment around it, the robot will master basic principles of structured grammar, like negation, by using these abilities in context," said Prof Chrystopher Nehaniv, a lead researcher in the project.

iCub, a one metre-high baby robot which will be used to study how a robot could quickly pick up language skills, will be available next year.

"iCub will take us a stage forward in developing robots as social companions. We have studied issues such as how robots should look and how close people will want them to approach and now, within a year, we will have the first humanoid robot capable to developing language skills," said Prof Kerstin Dautenhahn about the research he is conducting with Prof Nehaniv.

Professor Dautenhahn and Professor Nehaniv at the University of Hertfordshires School of Computer Science in UK are working with an international consortium led by the University of Plymouth on ITALK (Integration and Transfer of Action and Language Knowledge in Robots), which begins this month.

They will conduct research in human and robot language interaction to enable the robot to converse with humans. ITALK aims to teach the robot to speak by employing the same methods used by parents to teach their children.