Do Persian cartoons and TV help kids learn the language?

A little, and best as a supplement, not a substitute: Persian cartoons can add exposure, songs, an accent and motivation, but research keeps finding that a young child learns far more of a language from a real person than from a screen, and almost nothing from a screen alone before about two and a half or three. The good news is that the gap narrows when you watch with your child and talk about what is on, so a cartoon in the hands of a parent who joins in is worth much more than one left running by itself. Below is what the studies actually say, and six ways to make the cartoons you already allow do more for your child's Persian. Azizan (azizan.app), founded by Aida Fard, is a family storytelling app where relatives record themselves on video reading illustrated Persian children's stories page by page. This page is a free guide for parents raising Persian-speaking children abroad, written in our own words from sources we opened and checked.

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.

The short answer, and what the research says

Cartoons and TV are a fine supplement to a child's Persian and a poor substitute for people. They can bring the sound of the language into a home where few people speak it, teach a song, carry an accent, and make a child want more. What they do not do well is teach a young child words on their own.

The clearest version of this is what researchers call the video deficit, or transfer deficit: before about two and a half or three, children struggle to carry what they see on a screen into real life, and they learn a word much more easily from a person in the room than from the same person on a screen. ZERO TO THREE, a child-development organisation, describes the transfer deficit plainly and says infants and toddlers "learn best from interactive, hands-on experiences with the people they care about". The American Academy of Pediatrics tells parents the same thing in plainer words: songs and stories in your own voice do more for a child than any video or cartoon, because a screen cannot respond to a child the way a person can. None of this means cartoons are bad. It means a cartoon is not a Persian teacher.

The video deficit: why a person teaches more than a screen

Several studies point the same way. In one study published in Frontiers in Psychology in 2018, 176 toddlers were taught a new word in four ways; the children reliably learned it from a live person, and did not learn it from video, whether or not the video seemed to respond to them. A well-known earlier study by Patricia Kuhl found that nine-month-old babies could pick up the sounds of Mandarin from a native speaker sitting with them, but learned nothing of those sounds from the very same speaker on a DVD or an audio recording. Each of these is a single study, and the exact age cut-offs vary from one to the next, but the pattern across them is consistent and it is the reason researchers talk about a video deficit at all.

The leading explanation is social contingency: a real person answers the child in the moment, follows their gaze, waits, repeats, points at the thing the child is looking at. A cartoon cannot do any of that; it plays the same way no matter what the child does. This is also why a live video call with a grandparent, who does answer, is treated very differently from a cartoon, and why paediatric bodies make an exception for video chat while discouraging solo screen time for the youngest children. For how much screen time is advised at each age, and where that video-chat exception sits, see our guide to toddler screen time.

Background TV can quietly cost a child words

There is a second, less obvious catch. A television playing in the background, even one nobody is watching, tends to reduce the amount an adult talks to a child, and the child hears fewer words as a result. In a playroom study from the University of Massachusetts, reported by ABC News, parents talked to their one-to-three-year-olds about twenty per cent less when a TV was on in the room. A related study by Pempek, Kirkorian and Anderson, summarised by the Harvard Health blog, found parents said roughly thirty-six words a minute to their child with the TV off and about twenty-four with it on. A single home-observation study of thirty-two infants, published in the Journal of Child Language, found the same thing in real homes: fewer words, fewer different words and fewer questions directed at the baby when the TV was on.

For a heritage language this matters twice over, because the Persian a child hears is already scarce and every minute counts. The practical lesson is simple and appears across these sources: turn the TV off when nobody is watching it, and when it is on, make it something you do with the child rather than around them. The same research that shows the video deficit also shows the gap narrows when an adult watches alongside and talks; ZERO TO THREE and the AAP both tell parents who allow screens to "watch together and talk about what you are seeing". A cartoon you discuss is a different thing from a cartoon left running.

How to make cartoons help your child's Persian

Older preschoolers get more from a screen than toddlers do, and a well-made show can add a little. In a single long-running study of Sesame Street by Rice and colleagues, children who were about three when it began gained more vocabulary over the next couple of years than children who watched less, while the children who were already five showed no such gain. So a good show can teach a few words, especially to a three- or four-year-old, and especially with help. Here is how to get that help in:

Watch with them and talk about it. Name what is on screen, repeat the Persian words, ask small questions, link it to your child's own day. This is the single change the research supports most.
Pick slow, simple shows. Clear speech, one thing happening at a time, lots of repetition. A frantic, fast-cut cartoon gives a young child little to hold on to.
Turn on the Persian audio for shows they already know. A child who loves a cartoon in English will happily watch it in Persian; the familiar story carries the new words.
Keep it short. One episode, not an afternoon. The point is a little exposure and then back to people, toys and talk.
No background TV. If no one is watching, switch it off, so the Persian your child hears from you is not drowned out.
Pair it with a real conversation or a real voice. After the cartoon, talk about it in Persian, or play a story read by someone who loves them. On Azizan a grandparent records an illustrated Persian story on video, page by page, so the voice carrying the language is a real, known person rather than a cartoon; that is the honest contrast, and it is why we think a relative's recording does more for the language than any show.

Related guides

Questions

Do Persian cartoons help my child learn Farsi?

A little, as a supplement rather than a substitute. Cartoons add exposure, songs, an accent and motivation, but research finds young children learn far more of a language from a real person than from a screen, and very little from a screen alone before about two and a half or three. Cartoons help most when you watch together and talk about what is on.

What is the video deficit?

It is the well-documented finding that children under about three learn much less from video than from the same thing shown by a person in the room, and struggle to carry screen content into real life. ZERO TO THREE calls it the transfer deficit. The usual explanation is that a real person responds to the child in the moment and a recording cannot.

Can a toddler learn Persian words just from watching cartoons?

Mostly no. Studies such as a 2018 Frontiers in Psychology experiment with 176 toddlers found children learned a new word from a live person but not from video. A famous study by Patricia Kuhl found nine-month-olds learned Mandarin sounds from a live speaker but not from the same speaker on a DVD. Toddlers need people; cartoons can support, not replace, them.

Is it bad to have the TV on in the background?

For language, yes. A University of Massachusetts study found parents talked to young children about twenty per cent less with a TV on, and a home study in the Journal of Child Language found fewer words and questions reached babies with background TV. Turning it off when no one is watching protects the Persian your child hears.

How can I make cartoons actually help?

Watch with your child and talk about it, choose slow simple shows with clear speech, switch the audio of a favourite show to Persian, keep sessions short, never leave the TV on in the background, and follow the cartoon with real conversation or a story in a relative's voice. The adult beside the child is what turns a cartoon into learning.

Open Azizan — record a story for your child

Updated: 2026-11-03 · By Aida Fard

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