Is it normal for my child to mix Persian and English in one sentence?

Yes. Mixing Persian and English in a single sentence, what families call Finglish, is a normal and common part of growing up with two languages. It is not confusion, and it is not a sign of a problem. Speech-language organisations, children's hospitals and bilingualism researchers all describe this as ordinary bilingual behaviour. Proficient adult bilinguals do it too. Children mix mostly for simple reasons: they have a word in one language but not the other yet, or the people around them mix. It does not cause language delay, and it eases on its own as each language's vocabulary grows. 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.

Yes, and it has a name: code-mixing

What your child is doing has a name. Linguists call it code-mixing (or code-switching): using two languages inside one conversation, and often inside one sentence. For Persian and English, families have their own word for it, Finglish. A toddler who says مامان، my shoe رو بده (māmān, my shoe ro bedeh, "Mum, give me my shoe") is not lost between two languages. She has a Persian frame, مامان… رو بده, and has dropped the English words she reaches for faster, my shoe, into the middle of it.

Every source we opened treats this as ordinary. The Hanen Centre, a Toronto speech-language organisation, lists "mixing means my child is confused" among the myths of bilingualism and calls code-mixing a natural part of being bilingual. Nationwide Children's Hospital says using two languages in the same sentence is a natural form of communication for many bilingual speakers, and that mixing two languages is not bad. A widely cited research review by Krista Byers-Heinlein and Casey Lew-Williams puts it plainly: code mixing is a normal part of bilingual development, and rather than a sign of confusion it is better seen as a child taking the path of least resistance. Elena Nicoladis and Fred Genesee, reviewing the research in the Canadian Journal of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, say the same in plain terms: bilingual children's code-mixing is normal and cannot be taken as a sign that they are confusing their two languages, and mixing is a common form of communication among bilinguals, adults included.

So the short answer is the one every parent hopes for. Your child has two languages, not half of each. For how this fits with worries about late talking, see does speaking Persian at home delay a child's English.

Why your child mixes

Children do not mix at random, and they are not confused about which word belongs to which language. The reasons are practical.

They have the word in one language but not the other. This is the biggest reason in the early years. The research review by Byers-Heinlein and Lew-Williams describes it directly: when a bilingual child cannot quickly retrieve the right word in one language, she borrows it from the other. If your child knows shoe but has not yet met کفش (kafsh), shoe is what comes out, inside a Persian sentence. The Hanen Centre lists this same reason: children code-mix when they know a word in one language but not the other.
The people around them mix. Children copy what they hear. Byers-Heinlein and Lew-Williams note that children are often "just doing what they hear adults around them do", and that mixing is common among bilingual parents, including parents who try to keep one language each. Nationwide Children's makes the same point: if a parent switches between languages, the child will likely switch too. In most Persian-speaking homes abroad, the adults speak Finglish; the child is learning the family's real way of talking.
They are choosing a word on purpose. Sometimes there is no neat translation, or one word simply fits better. This is the same reason adults reach for ta'arof or deadline rather than hunt for an equivalent.

None of these is a problem to be fixed. They are signs that your child is using everything she has to say what she means.

It is a skill, not a muddle

Researchers who look closely at bilingual children keep finding structure where parents fear chaos. Byers-Heinlein and Lew-Williams report that children's early code-mixing follows "predictable grammar-like rules", and that even two-year-olds do not use their two languages haphazardly, adjusting how much they mix to match the person they are talking to. A 2023 study of Spanish-English children (one study, of a different language pair) describes within-sentence mixing as a typical bilingual behaviour that reflects "linguistic resourcefulness", and points out that blending two languages inside one sentence without breaking either one is thought to take a sophisticated command of both grammars. The Hanen Centre goes further and says many researchers see code-mixing as a sign of bilingual proficiency, not a lack of it.

How much a child mixes varies enormously from one child to the next. When Elena Nicoladis gathered the rates found across a number of studies of young bilingual children, the share of sentences in which they mixed the two languages ran from none at all to nearly half. A child who mixes in almost every sentence and a child who rarely mixes can both be completely typical.

Two honest caveats. First, bilingualism itself does not cause language delay, which the Hanen Centre and Nationwide Children's both state; but researchers are careful to say the long-term effects of growing up around a lot of code-mixing are not fully settled. As Byers-Heinlein and Lew-Williams put it, on that narrow question "the jury is still out". Second, mixing is not the same thing as a child who understands Persian but will only answer in English; that is a different pattern, covered in my child understands Farsi but answers in English.

How to respond when your child mixes

You do not need to correct the mixing, and stopping a child mid-sentence usually backfires: it turns talking into a test. The gentler moves below keep Persian in the room without pressure.

Model the full word, do not scold. When your child says مامان، my shoe رو بده, answer in Persian and slip the Persian word in naturally: آها، کفشت رو می‌خوای، بیا (āhā, kafshet ro mikhāy, biyā, "ah, you want your shoe, here"). She hears کفش without being made to feel she got it wrong.
Do not drop Persian because of the mixing. Nothing in the sources we read advises switching the home to English to stop the mixing. The opposite: a strong home language is what gives the child the Persian words she is currently missing.
Feed the gap. Most early mixing is a vocabulary gap. The more Persian a child hears for the things she talks about, the more often the Persian word is the one that comes first. Stories do this well, because they bring words that daily routines do not. On Azizan, a grandparent or parent records an illustrated Persian story on video, page by page, so the child meets those words in a familiar voice; it adds to talking with your child, it does not replace it.
Let it settle. As each vocabulary grows, children mix less to fill gaps and sort the two languages out more clearly over time. Fluent adult bilinguals still mix by choice when they are with other bilinguals, which is its own kind of fluency, not a failure of it.

If you are worried for other reasons, for example your child seems behind in both languages, that is worth checking; see the guidance in bilingual children and late talking, and for the longer picture of keeping Persian alive, why immigrant kids lose their mother tongue.

Related guides

Questions

Is it normal for my child to mix Persian and English in one sentence?

Yes. Mixing two languages inside a sentence is called code-mixing, and speech-language organisations, children's hospitals and bilingualism researchers all describe it as a normal, common part of bilingual development. It is not a sign of confusion. A sentence like «mamaan, my shoe ro bede» is a child using everything she has to say what she means.

Does mixing languages mean my child is confused?

No. Children who mix are not confused about which word belongs to which language. They usually mix because they have the word in one language but not the other yet, or because the adults around them mix. Researchers find children's mixing follows grammar-like rules and matches who they are talking to, which takes skill, not confusion.

Do bilingual adults mix languages too?

Yes. Proficient adult bilinguals code-mix when they talk with other bilinguals, and bilingualism researchers note that bilingual parents mix frequently, even parents who try to keep one language each. Many Persian-speaking families abroad speak Finglish; a child who mixes is learning the family's real way of talking.

Will mixing cause a speech delay?

Bilingualism itself does not cause speech or language delay, which speech-language organisations and children's hospitals state clearly. Mixing is part of normal bilingual development. Researchers are honest that the long-term effects of growing up around heavy mixing are not fully studied, but mixing on its own is not a reason for concern. If a child seems behind in both languages, see a speech-language pathologist.

How should I respond when my child mixes?

Do not correct or scold. Reply in Persian and include the Persian word naturally, so the child hears it without feeling tested. Keep speaking Persian at home, and give the child more Persian for the things she talks about, since most early mixing is simply a missing word. It eases as each vocabulary grows.

Open Azizan — record a story for your child

Updated: 2026-11-03 · By Aida Fard

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