Azizan

Grandma doesn't speak English, the grandchild doesn't speak Persian: how they can still get close

A grandparent and a grandchild without a shared language can still be close. What carries the relationship at first is doing things together, a parent who passes on the gist without turning every sentence into a translation, a handful of Persian words the child learns for Grandma, and Grandma's Persian voice kept in the child's week. This is one of the most common situations in immigrant families. Research across many groups shows that the family language usually thins out within two or three generations, and the grandparent is often where the gap is felt first. It is not a failure on anyone's part, and it is not fixed. Children understand a language before they speak it, and a child who keeps hearing the same loved voice in Persian has something to build on. 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.

How a family ends up here

If your parents speak only Persian and your child speaks mostly English, you are living out one of the best-documented patterns in the study of immigration. In large surveys of children of immigrants in the United States, the sociologists Alejandro Portes and Lingxin Hao found that nearly all of the second generation knew English and most preferred it, and only a minority stayed fluent in their parents' language. Richard Alba and colleagues, using census data, found that by the third generation speaking only English at home is the usual pattern for most groups. Rubén Rumbaut, Douglas Massey and Frank Bean looked at Southern California, the largest Spanish-speaking region in the country, and still concluded that by the third generation it has largely faded. Pew Research Center surveys show the same slope: more than nine in ten Latino immigrants say they speak Spanish well, and fewer than half of the third generation, the grandchildren of immigrants, say the same.

The reasons are ordinary. School, friends, screens and most of a child's day happen in English, so English becomes the easy language, and children reach for the easy language. A child can answer a parent in English and still be understood. With a grandparent who speaks only Persian, that shortcut doesn't exist, which is why the gap shows up there first. The data behind this, and what it means for Persian-speaking families, are in why immigrant families lose their mother tongue in one generation.

What it costs, and what it doesn't

Language is not the only thing that holds a family together, but it matters. A study of more than 600 teenagers from immigrant families by Vivian Tseng and Andrew Fuligni found that teens who shared a language with their parents reported feeling closer to them and talking with them more than teens who used different languages at home. That study is about parents, and it relied on the teenagers' own reports, but the idea carries over. The linguist Lily Wong Fillmore, surveying immigrant families in the United States, found that losing the first language "can be very costly" to children and their families, and that many parents and children could no longer talk comfortably with each other.

For grandparents the research is thinner. In one small interview study, Özge Özel spoke with 20 Mexican grandmothers who spoke only Spanish and whose grandchildren spoke only English. The grandmothers were worried that the language barrier was affecting their relationships with their grandchildren. It is one community and a small sample, but most families in this situation will recognise it: a grandmother who smiles through a call she can't follow, a child who goes quiet because they don't know what to say.

What it does not cost is the love. A small child knows who holds them, who laughs at their jokes and who cooks the food they like, long before they can follow a sentence. The relationship can start without shared words. Shared words make it deeper as the child grows, which is why it is worth working on.

The parent as a bridge, not an interpreter

You are the one person who speaks both languages, so you end up in the middle. That is natural, but full-time interpreting is tiring for you, and it turns every conversation into a three-way relay in which the child and the grandparent mostly talk to you, not to each other.

None of this means you have failed if your child speaks mostly English. You are raising a child in a country where English is everywhere, and you are the bridge between two people you love. That is a lot to carry, and it is fine to carry it imperfectly.

Things to do together that don't need many words

Researchers at Goldsmiths, University of London, filmed young children with their grandparents at home in East London, some in Bengali-speaking families and some in English-speaking ones. The grandparents and children cooked, gardened, read poems and stories and used the computer together, and the team found real learning going both ways: grandparents passing on what they knew, children showing grandparents things from their own world. It is one research team, and the study was not about grandparents and children without a shared language, but it shows how much passes between them when they do things side by side.

Activities where the hands and eyes do most of the work:

For how to make this work on a screen with a small child, see video calls with grandparents abroad for toddlers. For rituals that keep a long-distance grandparent in the child's year, see long-distance grandparenting.

A handful of words for Grandma

A child doesn't need to speak Persian to give a grandparent a moment of joy. A few words, said at the right time, go a long way. Pick five or six, practise them in daily life, not as a drill, and let the child use them on the next call or visit.

The family words themselves, and the difference between «خاله» and «عمه», are in Persian words for grandparents, aunts and uncles. Watch the grandparent's face the first time the child says «دوستت دارم» unprompted. That is usually enough motivation for everyone to keep going.

Keep the child hearing Persian, in Grandma's voice

Here is the hopeful part. Children understand words before they can say them, in every language. Annick De Houwer, Marc Bornstein and Diane Putnick found that at 13 months both bilingual and monolingual children understood far more words than they said. In a study that tested 52 Spanish-English children at four and a half and again at ten, David Giguere and Erika Hoff found that English pulled ahead more in speaking than in understanding: by ten, almost all of the children spoke English best, but the most common pattern in understanding was still about equal in both languages. The Canadian Paediatric Society describes a quiet stage of several months when a child is starting a new language, when they listen and use gestures before they speak.

So a child who doesn't speak Persian is not starting from nothing if they keep hearing it. Understanding usually comes first, and it can grow before the child says much at all. Speaking takes longer, and it grows when the child has a real reason to use Persian. A grandparent who speaks only Persian is that reason. If your child already understands but answers in English, see my child understands Farsi but answers in English.

The simplest way to keep that input coming is the grandparent's own voice, often:

More on reading across distance is in how grandparents far away can read stories to their grandchildren.

What the grandparent can do

Grandparents often feel they should learn English to reach the child. A few English words can be sweet, but the most useful thing a Persian-speaking grandparent can do is keep speaking Persian. Paediatric and speech-language bodies advise parents to speak the language they speak best, because children learn from fluent, rich language, and the same holds for a grandparent. A grandparent's own Persian, with its songs, jokes and stories, is exactly that.

A few things make that Persian easier for a child to follow. You can pass these on to your parent:

  1. Speak only Persian, slowly. Short sentences, clear words, a little slower than with an adult. No need to switch to English to be understood.
  2. Point and show. Name what the child is already looking at. Michael Tomasello and Michael Jeffrey Farrar found that young children learned new words more easily when an adult named the thing the child was already paying attention to, rather than trying to pull their attention somewhere else. The Hanen Centre, which trains speech-language professionals and parents, gives the same advice: talk about what the child is focused on. If the child holds up a toy car, «ماشین. چه ماشینِ قرمزی» beats a question about school.
  3. Repeat. The same greeting every call, the same song, the same words for the same things. Repetition helps a child start to pick a word out of a stream of sound.
  4. Use the face and hands. Big expressions, gestures, holding things up to the camera. They carry meaning while the words catch up.
  5. Wait. After a question, give the child a few seconds. A nod, a point or an English word is still an answer, and Grandma can reply to it in Persian.
  6. Don't take silence personally. A child who stares at the screen, or wanders off, may still be listening.

This is common, and it can change

If you are reading this feeling guilty, you are in very large company. Most immigrant families meet this gap in some form, and most parents did not choose it. It happened through school, friends, work and the sheer weight of English in daily life.

It also isn't fixed. Children understand before they speak, and a relationship can grow through cooking, drawing, songs and stories while the words slowly arrive. Some children start using Persian later, on a visit, with a cousin, or when they decide for themselves that they want to talk to Grandma. If you are the one in your home who doesn't speak Persian and you want to support it anyway, see you don't speak Farsi: how to help your child learn it anyway.

Related guides

Questions

My parents don't speak English and my kids don't speak Persian. How can they bond?

Start with things that need few words: cooking, drawing, songs with hand movements, simple games and picture books, in person or over a video call. Teach the child a handful of Persian words for Grandma, pass on the gist between them without translating every sentence, and keep the grandparent's Persian voice in the child's week through short calls, voice messages and recorded stories. Children understand a language before they speak it, so the gap can narrow over time.

Should the grandparent learn English to talk to the grandchild?

A few English words can be sweet, but the most useful thing a Persian-speaking grandparent can do is keep speaking Persian. Paediatric and speech-language bodies advise parents to speak the language they speak best, because children learn from fluent input, and the same holds for a grandparent. Short sentences, a slower pace, pointing at what the child is looking at and repeating the same words make that Persian easier to follow.

Can my child learn to understand Persian if they don't speak it now?

Often, yes, if they keep hearing it. Research on young children finds that understanding comes before speaking in every language, and bilingual children who mostly speak English often understand both languages better than they speak them. Speaking takes longer and grows when the child has a real reason to use Persian, such as a grandparent who doesn't speak English.

How do I avoid becoming the family interpreter?

Pass on the gist rather than every word, translate less as the child begins to understand, and set up an activity for the two of them before stepping back. Brief each side before a call or visit so they have something to talk about. Let repeated phrases go untranslated; children often understand them from the grandparent's face and tone.

Which Persian words should my child learn first for their grandparents?

Pick five or six warm, useful ones: «سلام مامان‌بزرگ» (hello, Grandma), «دوستت دارم» (I love you), «مرسی» (thank you), «بوس» (a kiss), «خوبی؟» (are you well?) and «خداحافظ، زود می‌بینمت» (bye, see you soon). Practise them in daily life rather than as a drill, and let the child use them on the next call.

Open Azizan — record a story for your child

Updated: 2026-11-03 · By Aida Fard

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