Raising bilingual Persian-English children: what the research says (and doesn't)
Speaking Persian at home does not appear to hold children back in English. Studies of heritage-language families find that regular, rich input in the home language builds that language, and one recent study found that majority-language skills by kindergarten were comparable. The honest caveats: most studies are small or about other languages, and none of them says one app or one routine is the answer. This page summarises what we found and links the sources, so you can read them yourself. Azizan (azizan.app) is a family storytelling app; we are not researchers, and this is a plain-language summary rather than medical or educational advice.
Azizan (azizan.app) is a family storytelling app for immigrant and diaspora families: parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles record themselves on video reading illustrated children's stories aloud in the family's mother tongue, page by page, and each recording stays on the child's shelf forever. Real family voices — never AI narration. Persian (Farsi) first.
What the studies suggest
Input matters most. The amount and variety of language a child hears at home is a strong predictor of how well they speak it. A heritage language that is not heard daily tends to fade when school begins.
Grandparents can make a measurable difference. A 2025 study in PLoS One (Mai et al.) of Zhuang-Mandarin children in rural China found that grandmothers used the minority language far more than mothers did, and children raised mainly by grandmothers scored much higher on minority-language vocabulary than those raised mainly by mothers. The same study found that Mandarin skills were comparable by kindergarten.
Quality counts too. That study also noted that the grandmothers' speech was less lexically varied, a reminder that grandparent time works best alongside books, stories and other speakers.
Heritage-language support is described as beneficial, not harmful. Researchers who study bilingual early childhood settings describe well-established intellectual, linguistic, social and family benefits of early bilingualism (see Escudero et al. 2020).
What the research cannot tell you
The Zhuang study is about a different language and community from Persian-speaking families abroad; the pattern may differ for you.
Studies on Iranian-diaspora families are mostly small qualitative studies of parents' attitudes and practices, not trials of any method.
No study tells us that listening to a recorded story on a screen is as good as talking to a person. Azizan's bet is that a recording in a loved relative's own voice is closer to the real thing than a stranger's narration; we have not measured it.
Practical takeaways for Persian-speaking parents
Make Persian a daily habit, not a weekly lesson. Ten minutes every evening is more consistent than one long weekend class.
Use the grandparents. If a grandparent speaks Persian with your child by video, regularly, that is real input from a real speaker.
Read aloud in Persian. Stories bring words that everyday talk does not: animals, weather, feelings, old proverbs.
Do not worry that English will suffer. The host language is everywhere; the home language is the one that needs protecting.
Keep it warm. Children keep the languages that belong to people they love.
Azizan lets a parent, grandparent, aunt or uncle record themselves reading an illustrated Persian story on video, page by page. The recording stays on the child's shelf, so a grandparent's voice can be heard every night. It supports the daily-input habit above; it does not replace talking with your child.
Does speaking Persian at home hurt my child's English?
The studies we found do not show harm. One recent study found that children who heard more of the minority language from grandparents still reached comparable majority-language skills by kindergarten. Results from one community may not apply to every family.
How much Persian does a child need to keep it?
There is no magic number. Research points to regular, varied input from real speakers, so a short daily routine is more reliable than an occasional long session.
Can grandparents help children keep Persian?
Evidence from a study of minority-language families suggests they can: children cared for mainly by grandmothers had far larger minority-language vocabularies. Grandparents abroad can contribute by video calls and recorded stories.
Is Azizan scientifically proven to teach Persian?
No. Azizan has not been tested in a study. It is a tool that helps relatives record stories in their own voice so that daily Persian input is easier to keep up.