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LO's language flourished when we got him in a preschool setting different from his daycare of primarily babies. Could you do classes with his age group on a regular basis, so he's surrounded by kids his age talking? It made such a difference with LO and his speech being around 14 other kids talking just like him.

@Ra: There is a boy in R's class that talks as good as a 3yr old. I walk in and he says R Lastname Mama. Um she doesn't know her last name, but he does.
We just say use your words a lot. Then tell her what things are a lot.

@Ra: Do the classes have free play time where the kids can roam and play? Some of the best talking with LO takes place then.

@Mamaof2: I totally agree with time.

@Ra: All kids develop language skills differently and at different speeds. The kid you are describing sounds incredibly advanced for his age. At 20 months, Xander only had about 25 words and most of them were only understandable by my husband and myself. His language skills exploded shortly after that, but he's only just now (2 years tomorrow) stringing words together in simple phrases.

I do think being in daycare full time helps though. He has lots of interaction with other kids and teachers and they read stories and sing songs all day. I'm assuming that must help.

Time. my friend who is in the health field said children should be able to string words based on their age, so at age two they should be saying two word sentences.

My DD is 2.5 and she can say 9 word sentences. Her cousin who is 3 months old than her only says about 3-5 word sentences but he can identify letters. So everyone is different. I would keep speaking to your LO as you would to an adult and do not answer for him. Encourage him to ask for what he wants.

Please don't compare your child to another. your child is doing wonderfully.

My 19 month old also has great receptive communication but not as developed expressive communication. The one thing I've found to be helpful is making sure that he has to at least attempt to say a word (it can be an approximation or imitation) before I give him something he requested or do something he wants. And we've been upping the ante as he gets better. So at first if he pointed at the sink and his cup to show that he wanted water, I would prompt him to make any vocalization first. Then he had to say "wa." And now we are working on "mo wa." And you can set up situations where your child has to communicate. So I will put a toy or snack in a container that he can't open so that he had to ask for it. (He is working on the long o sound)

Repetition. And sounding out the whole word for her. When she wants water she often says "wawa," but I always repeat it as "water." I also try and emphasize the second syllable when I repeat it back to her. So she'll say "bu" for book but when I give it to her I'll say here's your booK and really emphasize the K.

That was DD1 - she had literally zero discernible words, other than mama and dada up until her second birthday. She understood absolutely everything though and was following two and sometimes three step directions, so I knew her receptive language was fine, it was just the expressive that wasn't coming along. Shortly after her second birthday though, the words just started exploding, to the point where I couldn't even keep track of how many new words she was saying every day!

Now, at 2.5 years old, she has as many words as her peers and is perfectly on par developmentally. I think it was just her personality - she just wanted to wait until she knew she could do it before she started talking.

ETA: sorry, hit post before I meant to! Was just going to say that you are doing loads of great activities and all of the suggestions I have have already been mentioned above. I'm sure the language will come, some kids just take time, but I know it's hard not to worry!

Time! I worried that E was behind when we would hear other kids her age speak clear sentences (at 18-24 months) and E just was not there yet. If I'd ask her to repeat my sentence, she would drop the beginning of it or the end. I asked the pediatrician and his response was every child is different, they learn at their own pace and he wasn't concerned at all. He said he was only worried if there was regression, which there wasn't. I've always been on the verge of starting speech therapy with her but then a few weeks pass and she makes strides on her own.
At 23-24 months she finally started parroting a little more. Then there was kind of a lull where there was very little improvement but now at 2.5 she talks non stop. Long sentences, stories, questions of all kinds.