Heritage Language Studio

The funny thing about growing up between cultures is that you spend years adapting. You learn how to explain yourself, translate yourself, and make peace with the parts of your identity that don’t quite fit.

And then a child arrives.

And questions you thought you had already answered start resurfacing:

What do I want them to call me?

What language do I sing in?

Which traditions matter enough to continue?

What parts of my childhood do I want to recreate?

What parts do I want to leave behind?

For many diaspora parents, the desire to pass on a heritage language isn’t really about raising a bilingual child.

It’s about deciding what pieces of ourselves we want to carry forward.

That’s why I think it matters when partners make an effort to learn each other’s heritage languages, even imperfectly.

Research on multilingual families suggests that supportive partners help legitimize the heritage language within the home. They help create an environment where the language feels valued, welcomed, and worth preserving.

And when children see that?

They learn that this part of their identity matters too.

🤎

Filmed during my postpartum recovery at The Joyful Nest in Vietnam, a season that has me thinking deeply about home, belonging, and what I hope my daughter inherits beyond language alone.

If your child understands but doesn’t speak your language, it often comes down to 3 things:
✔️ meaningful input
✔️ real reasons to use the language
✔️ a strong cultural connection

Language isn’t just learned—it’s lived through relationships, identity, and everyday moments.

—

Filmed at Maison Marou 🤎 (not sponsored, just genuinely my favourite chocolate brand from Vietnam)

I love what they stand for: reviving Vietnam’s cacao culture and bringing it to the world. Brands like this matter (especially for diaspora families) because they give us tangible, and relatable ways to connect our children to their roots.

Your child understands your language… but won’t speak it back? 😩

This reel is based on the work of Dr. Wei Wang (University of Houston), recently presented at the American Association for Applied Linguistics Annual Conference , showing that what you do in the moment matters more than you think.

When your child switches to the majority language, you have 3 choices:
→ Move on (most common… least effective)
→ Prompt them to try again (but be strategic)
→ Bridge the gap and help them succeed

Which one should you choose?

Special thanks go to my colleague, mentor, and above all, dear friend Dr. Rachael Lindberg (L’Université du Québec à Montréal) for bringing my attention to Dr. Wang’s work.

Is OPOL the best strategy for raising bilingual children?

The One Parent One Language method is one of the most widely recommended approaches for bilingual families. And yes — it can work well in the right conditions.

But research on multilingual families shows that OPOL isn’t a magic formula. In some situations, it can actually make heritage language transmission harder.

For example:
• when only one parent carries the heritage language
• when there isn’t enough meaningful input
• when strict language separation feels unnatural for multilingual parents

The key isn’t following a rule perfectly.

What matters most is creating enough meaningful exposure and real reasons for your child to use the heritage language.

Many successful bilingual families adapt their language strategy over time.

✨ Think of OPOL as a starting point, not a rigid rule.

Is it too late to pass on your heritage language?

No.

But we need to understand where your child is developmentally.

Research (Mu & Dooley, 2015) suggests that heritage language learning often follows a trajectory:
Pleasure → Resistance → Commitment

✨ In childhood, language is relational.
It’s built through warmth, stories, routines, and shared meaning.

⚡ In adolescence, identity shifts.
Peers matter more. The dominant language has more social power.

You must understand resistance is not failure. It’s just developmental.

🌱 In adulthood, many return.
But commitment is only possible if something was preserved through the earlier stages.

Heritage language loss doesn’t usually happen overnight.
It happens during transitions.

So if your child is entering the “resistance” phase, don’t panic.

Focus less on control, more on connection.
Less on correction, more on cultural pride.
Because by adolescence, motivation can’t be imposed —
it has to become internal.

And that internal motivation grows from the foundation you built early on.

If you’re parenting a child between 8–16, this is your transition window.
Don’t be afraid! Handle it with awareness.

Special thanks to for this thoughtful advice!

When one parent speaks the majority language of society, OPOL alone usually isn’t enough to protect the heritage language.

Today, I dive into a great case study of .__ where OPOL (mom-Japanese; dad-English; family lives in US) worked extremely well. However, what made this case work wasn’t OPOL by itself.

Three things that enabled the success of OPOL:

1️⃣ High-quality, abundant input
Books, school, media, routines — the heritage language was everywhere, not just with one parent.

2️⃣ Real access to the culture behind the language
Travel, community, lived experiences — the language wasn’t just learned, it was lived.

3️⃣ A strong sense of cultural identity
Pride and belonging fuel motivation. When children feel connected to the culture, they want to use the language.

Raising kids with 3, 4, or even 5 languages is becoming the new normal — but deciding which language to teach first can feel impossible.

The best order isn’t about which language you speak best… it’s about which language is most at risk of disappearing in your family.
Some languages have global reach.
Others only survive if you keep them alive at home.
That’s where your “language hierarchy” comes in. 💛

In the video, I give ONE example of how a multilingual family might introduce different languages before school age — but it’s not the “best” or “right” way.
Every family is different.
Your goals, your lifestyle, your work, your values, even whether your child goes to daycare — all of that shapes the ideal plan.

✨ What matters most:
Start with the language that’s most vulnerable.
Then expand outward based on what you want for your child long-term.