Should I correct my child's Persian mistakes?

Mostly no, not the way it feels natural to: constant, explicit correcting tends to backfire with young children, who rarely take up a grammar lesson mid-sentence and often just talk less to avoid it, so the research-backed move is to recast — say the sentence back correctly and warmly, add a little, keep the conversation going, and treat the attempt as the win. The thing you are protecting is your child's willingness to speak Persian at all, which is far more fragile and far more important than any single wrong ending or borrowed English word. Correction is not forbidden; it is a question of how and when. For an older child who actually wants to get it right, gentle explicit feedback has its place. And mixing Persian and English in one sentence is normal bilingual behaviour, not a fault to stamp out. 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: recast, don't drill

Here is the situation this page is about. Your child is speaking Persian, which is already a small victory abroad, but it comes out bent: English word order ("من می‌خوام بروم بیرون بازی کنم با دوستام"), English words dropped into Persian sentences, verbs they have clearly invented on the spot. Your instinct is to fix it, right there, every time. The research on how children actually learn language says that instinct, taken to its natural extreme, works against you.

The foundational finding, from Roger Brown and Camille Hanlon in 1970 and replicated by Hirsh-Pasek, Treiman and Schneiderman in 1984, is that parents of young children do not, in ordinary life, approve or disapprove of their child's sentences based on grammar. They respond to whether the thing the child said is true and makes sense. Children, for their part, do not reliably take up an explicit grammar correction in the moment; a two- or four-year-old told "no, say it this way" usually cannot act on the rule even if they wanted to. What does leave a mark is a quieter move called a recast: you simply say the sentence back in correct form, keep talking, and let the child hear the right version inside a real conversation. That is the technique this whole page is built around.

Why heavy correcting backfires

There are two separate problems with correcting every mistake, and it helps to keep them apart. The first is that it mostly does not teach. Young children learning a first or home language absorb grammar from hearing lots of correct speech, not from being drilled; the correction slides off because the child is not yet at the point in their own development where they can use the rule. The second problem is the one that should worry a diaspora parent most, because it is the one that can quietly kill the language at home: constant correction makes the child not want to speak.

Speech-language guidance says this plainly. UK bilingualism advice for practitioners tells adults not to correct grammar or word order and to repeat the sentence back the right way instead, with no demand that the child imitate it. A separate NHS information sheet warns that direct correction is likely to lower a child's confidence and self-esteem and make them less willing to try. A small study of caregivers in Brazil found the same shape: direct and excessive corrections can leave a child insecure and silent, while reformulating the sentence correctly without making a fuss of the error supports more natural development. Picture it from the child's side. Persian is already the harder, less-practised language, the one where they feel least competent. If every attempt is met with "no — نه، اینطوری بگو", the rational move for a small person is to switch to the language where they do not get corrected, which is exactly the majority language you are trying to balance.

So the first thing heavy correction costs you is not accuracy. It is airtime. And airtime — how much Persian the child actually speaks and hears — is the thing that decides whether the language survives at all.

What recasting actually looks like

Recasting is less a parenting rule than a small conversational habit, and once you see it you will do it without thinking. The child says the sentence wrong; you say it back right, naturally, as part of answering them, and you add a little. You never say "that's wrong", you never ask them to repeat it, and you keep the topic moving.

Concretely. Your child says, "من دیدم یه داگ بزرگ." You answer, "آها، یه سگِ بزرگ دیدی. کجا دیدیش." You have modelled سگ for "dog", fixed nothing out loud, expanded with a question, and the conversation is still about the dog, not about grammar. If they invent a verb — "من نِشَستیدم رو صندلی" — you reply, "آره، نشستی رو صندلی، خوبه." If the word order comes out English, you simply reuse their idea in Persian order in your reply. Child-language research supports that this lands: in one well-known study, Michael Farrar found that young children imitated the correct grammatical endings inside corrective recasts noticeably more often than endings in ordinary repetitions. The clinical world is built on the same move — the ASHA evidence summaries for young children, and parent programmes such as Toronto's Hanen Centre, teach caregivers to expand and model what the child says rather than mark what they got wrong, and expansion and recasting are among the techniques with the strongest measured effect on how much children go on to say.

Two things make recasts work better. Praise the attempt, warmly and specifically — "چه خوب که اینو فارسی گفتی" — because you are rewarding the willingness to speak, which is the asset you are protecting. And keep your recast focused: say back the one corrected thing, not a stream of fixes, so the child can actually hear it. A child who hears correct Persian flowing around them all day, from people they love, gets the grammar for free; that is also exactly what a grandparent reading a story provides, and on Azizan a relative records an illustrated Persian story on video, page by page, so that steady stream of natural, correct Persian reaches your child in a familiar voice even on the nights no one is there to read in person.

Mixed-in English is not a mistake to fix

One habit worth pulling out of the "errors" pile entirely is code-mixing — dropping English words into Persian sentences, or sliding between the two languages within a conversation. Parents often read this as the child being confused, or as Persian losing to English. The research says the opposite. Elena Nicoladis, writing for speech-language pathologists, describes bilingual children's code-mixing as normal and specifically not a sign that the two languages are confused; bilingual children have been shown to tell their languages apart from around the age of two. A 2026 study in the journal Child Development, following around 195 young bilingual learners, found that when and how children switch tracks their developing proficiency — it is a dynamic reflection of a bilingual mind at work, not a breakdown.

There is even reassurance about your own mixing. Research summarised by Utrecht University and The Informed SLP in 2025 found that parents mixing languages in what they say was not linked to worse outcomes in the majority language, including for children with a language disorder. So mixed speech in and around the home is not the threat it is often made out to be. The practical takeaway: do not treat a borrowed English word as an error to correct. If your child says "داگ", just use سگ naturally in your reply, the way you would recast anything else, and move on. Over time the Persian word is there for them because they have heard you use it, not because you flagged theirs as wrong. For more on this, see is it normal for my child to mix Persian and English.

When gentle correction does have a place

None of this means correction is banned, and it would be dishonest to pretend the research is one-voiced. The picture changes with age and, above all, with whether the child wants to improve. Explicit feedback — naming the mistake, explaining the rule — needs a learner who is developmentally ready to use the rule and interested in getting it right, which describes an older child far more than a toddler.

The clearest evidence comes from the second-language classroom. Roy Lyster's work with fifth-grade immersion learners (about ten to eleven) found that prompts — nudging the child to self-correct rather than handing them the answer — produced more real uptake than recasts, partly because a recast can be missed as mere agreement. Rod Ellis, Younghee Sheen and the broader body of corrective-feedback studies find that explicit correction can genuinely help grammar, most reliably when it is immediate, focused on one form, and pitched at the learner's level. So for an eight- or ten-year-old who says "I want my Persian to sound right", a light, invited "we actually say it like this" is useful and welcome. The test is consent and readiness: are they asking to be better, or are they just trying to tell you something. For a three-year-old, almost always the latter, and the recast wins. For an older child who has opted in, a gentle explicit nudge belongs in your kit alongside it.

So, in practice

Recast instead of correcting. Say the sentence back the right way as part of your reply, add a little, and keep the conversation going. Do not say "that's wrong" and do not ask the child to repeat it.
Protect the willingness to speak above accuracy. A child who is talking in imperfect Persian is winning. A child who has gone quiet to avoid being corrected is the real loss. Reward the attempt, warmly and by name.
Let mixed-in English go. It is normal bilingual behaviour, not confusion. Use the Persian word naturally in your own reply rather than flagging theirs.
Flood the room with correct Persian. Children get grammar from hearing a lot of it, from people they love — everyday talk, songs, and relatives reading stories — far more than from being drilled.
Save explicit feedback for the child who wants it. For an older child asking to improve, a gentle, invited "we say it like this" helps. For a small child mid-sentence, it does not; recast and move on.

And if the deeper problem is that your child understands Persian but keeps answering in English, that is its own common pattern with its own guide: my child understands Farsi but answers in English.

Related guides

Questions

Should I correct my child every time they make a Persian mistake?

No. Young children rarely take up an explicit grammar correction in the moment, and correcting constantly tends to make them speak less, not better. The research-backed habit is recasting: say the sentence back correctly and naturally as part of your reply, add a little, and keep talking. Save explicit correction for an older child who actually wants to get it right.

What is recasting, exactly?

It is simply saying your child's sentence back in correct form, without marking the error. If they say "من دیدم یه داگ", you answer "آها، یه سگ دیدی، کجا". You have modelled the correct word and word order, asked a question to keep the conversation alive, and never once said "that's wrong". Studies find children pick up the correct forms inside recasts more than inside plain repetitions, and clinical parent programmes are built on the same move.

Won't my child's Persian stay wrong if I never correct it?

Children learn grammar mainly by hearing a lot of correct speech from people they are bonded to, not by being drilled. Recasting gives them that correct version every time they speak, inside a real conversation, which is how the grammar settles over time. The bigger risk to your child's Persian is not imperfect sentences; it is the child going quiet, and heavy correction is one of the things that makes them go quiet.

My child mixes English words into Persian sentences. Is that a problem?

No, it is normal bilingual behaviour. Speech-language researchers find that code-mixing is not a sign the two languages are confused; bilingual children tell their languages apart from around age two, and switching tracks their developing skill. Do not treat a borrowed English word as an error. Just use the Persian word naturally in your own reply and move on.

My older child wants their Persian to be better. Can I correct them directly then?

Yes, gently and when they have asked for it. Explicit feedback works best with a child who is old enough to use the rule and wants to improve; evidence from language classrooms suggests nudging them to self-correct often helps more than simply supplying the answer. The test is consent and readiness. For a small child mid-sentence, recast instead; for an older child who has opted in, a light "we actually say it like this" belongs alongside recasting.

Open Azizan — record a story for your child

Updated: 2026-11-03 · By Aida Fard

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