You know who’s more competitive than a South Asian parent?? A South Asian grandparent!!
When my daughter was about 18 months old, my dad went to pick her up from school and bumped into an acquaintance who flexed their child’s colour mastery. Nana wasn’t having it.
Suddenly, Zoya found herself in the middle of an army-style boot camp she’d never signed up for. For breakfast, lunch, and dinner, we had colour soup. We drove colour runs, we walked colour drills, and we sang colour songs. It was effective; Dad could thumb his nose at said acquaintance as Zoya practised her “gweens” and “bwouns”.
Such zeal and dedication are found in the fabulous parents who practice the One Parent, One Language (OPOL) approach. This is the most famous path to multilingualism and not for the faint-hearted or lazy—which my husband and I admittedly are!
We’re not professional linguists by any chance. Just your standard always-wondering, constantly-googling parents to a toddler and an infant. But over the years we’ve found four less military, more fun ways to explore our heritage languages together.
Here are four things that worked for us:
1. Curb the urge to translate.
Children do not naturally require or wait for translation unless adults model it that way. In fact, constantly translating sentences for a child ("Here is the apple, _seb_")— ‘sandwiching’ in professional circles— actually teaches the child to tune out the heritage language because they know the English version is coming right after.
2. Talk to them (not around them)
Chat with your kids normally— in your heritage language. Tell stories. Hearing a word in multiple contexts helps a child grasp usage intuitively. Don’t worry if they’re doing other stuff on the side—those little ears are listening to everything and absorbing like a sponge, even inappropriate music on the radio. But watch out! While toddlers do absorb a lot, don’t rely on passive stuff like background TV or even video. Kids learn best through interaction. When they have to respond, passive understanding turns into active speaking, and eventually fluent speech. It’s why you might have spent hours on Duolingo learning Spanish and frozen up when you actually landed in Spain. I did 🤣
3. Embrace “Code-Switching”. Let them make language soup.
Mixing languages in one sentence (e.g., "I want khaana") is actually not a bad thing at all. It shows the child is pulling from their full combined vocabulary to communicate as efficiently as possible —completely normal, and a sign of a smart little brain. And if you are worrying about speech delays, don’t! Seriously. A temporary lag in one language or mixing languages is totally normal. Bilingual toddlers often have smaller vocabularies in each language compared to single-language kids, but bilingualism doesn't cause delays. Worried? Ask your paediatrician.
4. Peer pressure and instant rewards beat boot camp.
Seeing OTHER kids speak the heritage language often convinces a child the language matters in their world: playdates, cousins, or community events in the heritage language work wonders. If you have help at home, encourage them to speak with the kids in their language, too. It works well because it lets kids practice in real-world settings with instant gratification. Language acquisition explodes when there is a real, immediate functional need or high-interest connection.
You know what really worked instead of Hindi colours bootcamp? Aligning myself with a rainbow unicorn. Children are pragmatists; they use whichever language gets their needs met fastest. Zoya landed pitch-perfect pronunciation of the words ‘gulabi’ and ‘baingani’ because they served the immediate need of describing her favourite toy every time it disappears in one of Nani’s cleaning drives. Magical indeed!
Kids learn the language that meets their needs. Make your heritage language useful, not a test.
Send this (lovingly) to a grandparent running colour boot camp. And let us know what else worked in your journey to relaxed and happy multilingual kids.
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