The first time one of mine came home from school cheerfully singing what sounded like “Allon-zon-fon!“, I had no idea what to do with it. Was I supposed to join in? Correct her? Pretend I knew what she was saying? (Reader, I did not know what she was saying.)
Most primary-school parents I know hit this moment at some point. Your child starts learning a language at school, and unless you happen to speak it yourself, you suddenly feel slightly out of your depth, almost like you’ve been handed homework you can’t help with.
Here’s the good news, and I really do mean it: you don’t need to speak a word of French, Spanish, or anything else to be genuinely useful. A few small things at home make a much bigger difference than you’d think.
Why primary is such a good time for this
Younger kids are usually much more willing to try. They’ll copy weird sounds, sing songs they don’t really understand, and have a go without the teenage fear of looking silly. They’re picking up rhythm, pronunciation and confidence, even when it doesn’t look like much is happening on the surface.
It also quietly opens a door to the rest of the world: other countries, food, festivals, music, and the simple idea that there are millions of children somewhere doing exactly what they’re doing, just in a different language.
You don’t need a curriculum at home
The fastest way to put a child off a language is to turn it into homework. So don’t. None of this needs to be a lesson. The most useful thing I’ve found is just letting the language live in tiny corners of the day:
- Counting stairs in Spanish on the way up to bed (uno, dos, tres…)
- Saying bonjour and au revoir at the school gate instead of hi and bye
- Naming the colours of the fruit in the bowl at breakfast in whatever language they’re learning
Three minutes a day. No testing. No pressure. That’s the whole trick.
Songs are the cheat code
Kids remember songs in a way they absolutely do not remember vocab lists. There’s a reason teachers lean on them so heavily. Frère Jacques, Alouette and Tête, épaules, genoux et pieds (the French version of Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes) are all on YouTube in toddler-friendly versions you can stick on while they’re colouring. If they’re learning Spanish, Los Pollitos Dicen and La Vaca Lola will be stuck in your head within a week, but the kids will know them word-for-word.
Repetition isn’t a problem here. Repetition is the point.
Tie it to something they already love
Language sticks much better when it’s attached to something a child actually cares about. Animal-mad kid? Learn the animal names. Football obsessed? Shirt colours, numbers, basic chants. Big eater? Food vocabulary is endless, and unreasonably useful on holiday.
The first time mine realised they could order their own ice cream abroad (actually do it themselves, without me hovering), something clicked. It stopped being a school subject and became a tool. That’s the shift you’re aiming for.
Find out what they’re actually learning
This sounds obvious, but most of us forget to ask. Primary languages tend to come in topic chunks: numbers one week, family members the next, then food, then classroom objects. If you know roughly what they’re on, you can sneak it into the kitchen, the bath, the car ride. (Sticky notes on furniture in the language is the oldest trick in the book, and it still works.)
A lot of UK primary schools now use a proper structured primary languages scheme of work for their language lessons. Language Angels is one of the big ones, used in thousands of UK schools. The reason that matters from a parent’s point of view is that the lessons are designed to build on each other deliberately, so anything you reinforce at home actually stacks up rather than getting forgotten by Friday. If your child’s school uses something similar, it’s worth asking which language and topic they’re on each half term. Most teachers are delighted to be asked.
Resources we’ve actually used
Honestly, you don’t need much. A few things that have earned their place:
- Usborne first-word picture dictionaries in French and Spanish, lovely for bedtime
- Duolingo ABC / Duolingo Kids: short, gamified, no nagging
- Glurbs: a game for language learners that blends foreign language learning into a fun and interactive game
- YouTube and CBeebies-style channels in other languages: even putting Peppa Pig on in French for ten minutes counts
- Homemade flashcards: ten cards covers a topic for a week
You don’t need all of these. Pick one. Use it for a fortnight. Move on.
The single most important thing
Don’t correct too hard. The biggest favour you can do your child in the first couple of years is let them be wrong, badly accented, and proud of themselves anyway. Confidence is doing 90% of the work at this age. Fluency catches up later. If they say bone-jor instead of bonjour, hug them and move on.
It helps to be a bit shameless yourself, too. Try the words. Get them wrong. Let them giggle at you and correct you. Kids love being the expert, and “teaching mum” is one of the most motivating things in the world for a six-year-old.
And if you genuinely don’t speak it?
That might honestly be your secret weapon. You’re modelling something more important than perfect pronunciation: that it’s fine to try, fine to be a beginner, and fine to enjoy something you’re not yet good at.
That’s a lesson worth passing on, and it travels a long way past languages.
