This situation can feel incredibly frustrating. I know it well myself, because my own son used to answer me in Italian whenever I spoke to him in German. So what can you do when a child understands the second language but always responds in the dominant one?
How can I motivate my child to speak?
Surround your child with lots of materials in your language
This may sound obvious, but it’s essential to immerse your child in the language, so keep plenty of materials of that language in your home.Books are a fundamental tool for providing high-quality, varied linguistic input, and it’s important that you read to your child out loud, ideally in a way that they can see your facial expressions and the movements of your mouth. Non-verbal language is an essential part of communication (trust me, I’m an interpreter!), and this helps them reproduce sounds that they can imitate.
Depending on your child’s age, audiobooks or storytelling toys (which often exist in many languages) are also helpful. Children can use them with you, or alone when you’re not around.
If your child is old enough, cartoons and children’s programs in your language work well too.Maybe you’ve chosen to limit screen time in your family, but remember: this exposure is enriching. It provides additional input that your child needs to reach bilingualism. Every show offers new voices, accents, topics, and vocabulary that differ from yours, but are easy for children to grasp through context. Even a simple cartoon can provide a lot of linguistic variety.
A simple rule of thumb: Replace screen time in the dominant language with the same amount in your language.
Use interactive materials
For children ages 3–4 and up, interactive toys or books with audio pens are fantastic.
Personally, I really like Ravensburger’s TipToi (no affiliation — just a recommendation!). With the pen, children tap images to hear the text read aloud, listen to rhymes or songs, solve riddles, find objects, identify letters and numbers, and more. Choose topics that genuinely interest your child; their curiosity will increase their motivation.
These activities are extremely helpful for comprehension, but they are unidirectional: the child listens and receives input, but the interaction is mostly passive. To activate language and encourage speaking, your child needs activities that involve interaction.
Tap into your child’s interests and create interaction
Research shows (and intuition confirms) that learning happens where interaction happens.
Add strong personal interest into the mix, and the game is literally won.
Your child’s interests
Make a list of everything your child is currently passionate about. Unicorns? Dinosaurs? Pirates? Building with LEGOs? Playing “store” every day with a pretend cash register and credit card?
- Parent–child interaction
Based on those interests, create activities that require back-and-forth interaction. Act out a dinosaur battle together, speaking in “dinosaur voices.” Build a house out of LEGOs and ask your child to hand you “the red brick for the rectangular door.” Play a full role-play shop game: walk in with a shopping list, ask which apples are the freshest today, pay with play money, and ask for change. Dialogue and interaction make learning easier — and your involvement motivates your child to answer in your language and use it in play. The key: the activity must be so engaging that the language becomes secondary Choose a calm moment when your child feels good, and make sure you are also undistracted. Turn off your phone, set aside your to-do list, and tune in to your child’s needs.
Your child will be happy because:
– they chose the activity
– it’s their favorite kind of play
– and they have your full, undivided attention
With interest and motivation leading the way, the language naturally slips into the background, and they end up learning without even realizing it. Before you know it, your child will start speaking your language with you!
The key: the activity must be so engaging that the language becomes secondary
Choose a calm moment when your child feels good, and make sure you are also undistracted.
Turn off your phone, set aside your to-do list, and tune in to your child’s needs.
Your child will be happy because:
– they chose the activity
– it’s their favorite kind of play
– and they have your full, undivided attention
If your child loves books… In addition to reading aloud (passive input), you can also look at the pictures together and comment on them. This creates opportunities for your child to answer you in your language:
“Can you find the little gray mouse on this page?”
“What are those kittens doing?”
If it’s their favorite book that you read every night, encourage them to retell the story in their own words or even reinvent it, which is great for language activation.
And if what they say isn’t perfect, do not interrupt or correct them. Here’s why…
Pass on your language naturally
Learning and acquiring a language are two different things. You’re the parent — not your child’s language teacher.
At home, language is acquired naturally, without lessons, corrections, or quizzes.
Your child wants to speak your language and is trying to imitate you. Their sentence may not be perfect, but it’s the best they can do at the moment, and interrupting the flow with, “No, not like that, it’s said this way…” breaks confidence.
Let them speak and make mistakes.
It’s far more important to:
– let them try
– strengthen their self-esteem
– reinforce what they can say
– and build from there
Give them the certainty that they can take risks without being judged.
They want to speak your language, so help them do it naturally by removing the pressure.
What if they make lots of mistakes? You can repeat what they said in the correct form, but without saying they were wrong. Over time, the mistakes will disappear on their own.
For the same reason, prevent anyone, inside or outside the family, from quizzing or correcting your child (“How do you say this in Spanish?” “How many words can you say in English?”).
These situations:
– demotivate
– harm self-esteem
– feel embarrassing
– and create negative emotional associations with your language
Surround your child with speakers of your language
If you are the only source of the minority language at home, look for others who can support you.
Connect with your cultural community in your area
Attend activities or playdates with other families
Find children close in age to your child; peer motivation + interaction is a powerful combination
If you have family or friends in your home country, visit them to create immersion and let your child interact with people with different voices, accents, and communication styles.
If travel isn’t possible, invite them to visit you for a similar effect.
Between visits, stay in touch by phone or video. Weekly calls with grandparents or cousins are incredibly enriching, not just linguistically. Your child will feel more connected to their family abroad, and the ongoing connection prepares them for the next visit.
Share your culture and traditions
Your goal is for your child to speak your language, but that language is only one part of your identity.
Tell them about your childhood and what life was like in your country. Bring your traditions into your home:
Celebrate Thanksgiving or the 4th of July as if you were in the U.S. Make a St. Martin’s lantern and recreate the lantern walk with friends Celebrate Nikolaus Day by leaving gifts in shoes by the door
The possibilities are endless.
Have you already tried some of these strategies, but your child still refuses to speak? Contact me, and let’s find the solution that works for you and your child together.
Book a free discovery session!