When you say "a little" that is put forth in a positive light, while "little" gives a negative tone, such as "not much". "speak" and "talk" are not always interchangeable. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/speak https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/talk

"speak" focuses on the process of talking or is used when one makes a speech or talks to someone in a one way sort of manner. "talk" is just a general back and forth exchange of ideas and focuses on communication by word of mouth. "talk" is used for general conversation. So, if you say "The children speak a little." I think that they are still learning how to talk. If you say "The children talk a little." I think that they had a short conversation.

The hints do show both "talk" and "speak", did you try "speak"?

이야기하다, 말하다 and 대화하다 (to converse) all overlap somewhat in meaning in the area of talking or conversing. They are also all examples of verbal expressions, quite common in Korean (and Japanese), that are actually made from nouns + the verb to do/make 하다 (J する). So the various meanings of the nouns are the key.

이야기 (sometimes pronounced and written 얘기) means story, tale, rumor, hearsay, as well as talk or conversation. Note the similar connection in English between 'tale' and 'tell.' Compounds include 이야기책 storybook, 이야기꾼 storyteller, 이야깃거리 topic / subject.

말 and the more elevated or honorific form 말씀 mean words, speech, or even language. So another way of saying 한국어 is 한국말 (pronounced hangungmal due to the assimilation of the k before m).

대화 means dialog, conversation, chat, or talk and is originally formed from the two hanja (Chinese characters) 對話, opposite / across + speech / talk. The Naver Dictionary (relied on heavily above as well to supplement some now very sketchy prior knowledge) gives the compound 대화창 chat window.

이야기하다 means "to tell/talk"

이야기하다 - verb 이야기 - noun

조금 refers to quantity rather than size.

2 reasons. 1st, a word that describes the subject goes before the subject. 2nd, 조금 doesn't mean size.

From what i know, in order for little to be applied to the noun you would have to use the word little along with the post position 은/는 in front of the word for children. However, in this case, the word 조금 cannot be used to describe people. It is used to describe 'a little amount of something'.

2018 december 31: chat was accepted. I suspected same meaning as you because previous lessons always implied social mingling.

You can use Memrise for the verbs. -- English does not conjugate words like most other languages. And the Korean way of conjugation is more simple.

Just learn, like a child, even if you feel dumb. The more you try to be logical the harder it gets to learn another language.

Late response but: Typically it denotes the subject of the sentence.

~ 이 comes after a consonant (which in this case would be 들)

~ 가 comes after a vowel. So for example if it was just 아이, it'd be 아이가

This was covered in Basics 1 if you need the refresher still. https://www.duolingo.com/skill/ko/basics-1

When children talk a little, that usually means for a little while, but when children talk little that means they barely talk. They do not mean the same thing.

Subject-verb agreement. The children talk a little. If it were simply the child, it would be, The child talks a little.

"the children speak some" isn't correct english though

Even if I think in English, those two phrases have a different meaning.

Talk a little is a positive thing, maybe I did not expect them to talk much or at all and here they did talk a little.

Tall little is not much, so it appears as a negative thing.

Talk less is not as much as before, so there is a comparison to a time when they talked more than this time.

People speak a language and talk to each other. You speak in front of a crowd which is the same as giving a speech. You speak to someone about something, which sounds a bit more serious than talking to someone about something. You talk for hours on end. You talk with your friends. You can even teach your dog to speak, but that dog will never talk unless it is in a children’s story or cartoon where animals do things like humans. Your child may speak for the very first time, but it will take longer for him to talk with you. So speaking is concerned with the physical ability to form words or create speech and is also used when you plan to speak to someone about a serious situation. Talk is more casual and is used for the exchange of ideas and feelings between people.