My daughter has just got her own pet at 11 years old and has chosen a budgie.  She is very keen on training him to speak and maybe do a few tricks(flying to her sort of stuff) but I don't have a clue how to train budgies.  Anyone got any tips?

No tips of my own, but putting the words clicker train budgie into YouTube brings up quite alot.

try to get a hand reared bird its much tamer and choose a male for talking
you need to put your hand in with food on every day, eventually he will hop on your hand. talk every day, short words at first, no mirrors or toy birds or they talk to that instead of you
good luck

Ah, thanks allready!!  She has him allready. A little male bird from a breeder but not hand reared.  I can catch him quite easily but he won't chose to come to us.  I've been holding him and giving him fresh fruit whilst he is with us for a treat.  I feel a bit silly talking to him through the day when she is at school but hes such a friendly little thing.  Dogs think we've all went mad and the cat just thinks 'lunch'!!

be very careful with the cats even though the bars on his cage are i am sure very narrow.
a budgie belonging to a relative was killed by her cat dragging him through the bars of his cage:(

Keep him in a busy part of the house, NOT the kitchen, and away from any smokers should there be any in your house, don't use Febreze or other aerosols in his vacinity.

Loads of talking to him, but pick a favourite few words, we had a Timneh that was forever saying 'put the kettle on' and a Cocktiel that whistled 'Pop goes the weasel'.

Put your hand into the cage regularly so that he gets used to it and in time offer titbits with hand feeding, avoid over endulgence with millet it's birdie junk food.

It is a lot easier with hand reared birds but Budgies are quite quick to pick things up. Males always talk more than females :)

We have an aviary of assorted birds and without any training our orange winged amazon does a brilliant cockatiel call, has the plum head shreek down to a treat and can even bark like a golden retriever all very very loud and annoying when were in the garden!!!

Have fun and I bet you get to clean the cage out the most, oh and put the cat out at cleaning time just to be safe.

That brings back so many memories for me, 40 years ago i got my first pet, a budgie  i named  'Chez' when i was 14. I  used to rush home from school every night and would sit stroking her on my chest for hours at a time, she was so tame.I had her for 7 years during which time i got married and had my first baby,she would sit on my shoulder while i did the housework.She was wonderful!

> Keep him in a busy part of the house, NOT the kitchen, and away from any smokers should there be any in your house, don't use Febreze or other aerosols in his vacinity.
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good points.  would add one reason for not in kitchen is birds can have very bad (ie fatal) reactions to even slightly over heated none-stick cookware. 

">birds can have very bad (ie fatal) reactions to even slightly over heated none-stick cookware.

That's the main reason in a nutshell.

Well, it's a bit of a nightmare here as our whole downstairs is open plan.  My daughter left him out the cage in her room while she was at school but he was on  his own so now she leaves him in the livingroom where her dad built a high up shelf for his cage.  I've told her that she needs to be responsible for cleaning his cage and she's been good so far but we will see.....lol.  He's a lovely thing though.  First flight he landed in the bath in a lego boat with my 2 sons.  They thought it was fab as he was like stealth budgie but I'm not sure the budgie thought as much!!lol.  Oh well, I will pass on the training tips and my boys have been warned.  No bad language!!  He's got me well trained allready shouting at me to open his cage(which I willing oblige).  I like to make him aware that we can communicate even if it's him telling me what to do!!lol

PS  We don't have any smokers and I can't use airfresheners.  I use candles(sometimes)

Being open plan is not the end of the world, just make sure that your bird is at the furthest end from the kitchen and that the kitchen is well ventilated when you cook.

Lovely as the idea is to let a bird have free roam when you not in it not always a good idea, the cage on the shelf in your living room is safer when you're out, we have a pair of 1yr old Cockatiels given to us by a workmate that realised his wife was allergic to bird dust, the Lutino had a very badly damaged wing and had lost the primary flight feathers due to flying into a window blind when mum and dad were out at work. They are now well adjusted to aviary life.

With caged birds you need to be there when they are having moments of free flying.

As for landing in the bath with your boys that brings back memories for me of going to take a shower with a heavy amazon parrot on my shoulder boy do those claws leave marks :(

Be careful with the candles, birds don't have lungs as such but air sacks and modern day living can cause havoc with their breathing.

Have fun :)