My child just imitates chatter (long, meaningless babble) and it doesn't turn into words.

Meaningless chatter (jargon) is the picture of a child enjoying and processing the sound and rhythm side of language, and it's a stage typically developing children pass through as well. In most cases it progresses in this order: "imitating the overall feel of speech → imitating short sounds → imitating words connected to meaning → spontaneous words." The next step is to draw out "imitating sounds." Let them hear it together with the situation in an easy-to-imitate form — slowly, clearly, and briefly — like "beep (the sound of pressing a remote)" or "want to?" Just as "pseudo-writing" (written jargon) fades once a child can write letters, jargon naturally decreases as meaningful words increase.