My Child Understands Yoruba or Igbo but Won't Speak It: What's Happening and What Helps

If your child understands the Yoruba or Igbo you speak to them, then answers you in English, you are not imagining it and you are not alone. It is one of the most common patterns in families whose home language differs from the language of school. It often becomes noticeable in the nursery and early primary years, when English starts arriving all day from teachers, friends and screens.

A child who answers in English has usually not lost the language. Understanding tends to last longer than speaking, so what has changed is mostly which language they choose to use out loud.

Below: why it happens, what helps at home, and what to do if your own Yoruba or Igbo is shaky. Most of the research involves other languages, so we say where findings come from.

Why it happens, and when

The shift towards English is driven mostly by the world around the child, and it often speeds up when they start nursery or school.

The best-known study of this is Lily Wong Fillmore's 1991 survey of more than 1,000 language-minority families in the United States (Wong Fillmore, 1991). Among families whose children attended English-only preschools, about 64% of parents reported that their home language was being used less at home. In a comparison group whose children attended Spanish-language preschools, about 11% reported the same. Wong Fillmore was careful to say her survey could not prove that preschool caused the change, and her sample was not representative. The pattern she described has been echoed widely since.

Studies of Spanish-speaking children in the United States who started English at around age 5 found that English typically became their stronger language during the primary school years (Kohnert, Bates & Hernandez, 1999; Kohnert & Bates, 2002). In a small study of 10 Chinese-speaking children who moved to the United States, those who arrived aged 9 or younger switched their preferred language to English within their first year (Jia & Aaronson, 2003).

Across whole communities, the pattern is strong. In Southern California, Spanish lasted longer than most immigrant languages, yet only 17% of the third generation of Mexican-origin families spoke it fluently (Rumbaut, Massey & Bean, 2006). Parents drift too. In one study of 72 Spanish-speaking mothers, mothers used more English with their children over the three years their children spent in English-medium preschool (Hammer et al., 2009).

When a pattern shows up across thousands of families and several generations, it is not evidence that you did something wrong. It is evidence of how strong the pull of a majority language is.

Why they understand but won't speak

Understanding and speaking are different skills, and they do not develop at the same rate.

Understanding means recognising words someone else has chosen. Speaking means finding the right words yourself, quickly, and putting them together while someone waits. A study of 5-year-olds learning French and English in Montreal found that children needed more exposure to a language to match monolingual children in the words they could say than in the words they could understand (Thordardottir, 2011).

Add to that one more fact your child knows perfectly well: you understand English. If English is the quicker way to be understood, many children will take it. That is a sensible choice from their point of view, not defiance.

This matters for what you do next, for two reasons.

First, understanding is worth something. Adults who had overheard Spanish regularly as young children, but barely spoken it, had noticeably better accents than other learners when they later studied it, although their grammar was no better (Au et al., 2002).

Second, speaking is worth more. A follow-up study found that people who had actually spoken the language as young children kept more of its grammar than those who had only heard it (Au et al., 2008). So the goal at home is not mainly more listening. It is creating real reasons, and safe moments, for your child to speak.

What actually helps at home

None of the approaches below is a guarantee, and most of the research behind them involves small groups and other languages. Each one comes with its honest limits.

More of the language, from more people. The clearest finding in this field is that children's skill in a language tracks how much of it they hear (Hoff et al., 2012). In a survey of about 1,900 Belgian families, almost all families where both parents spoke only the home language had a child who spoke it. That dropped to about a third when one parent mixed languages and the other used only the majority language (De Houwer, 2007). Limit: this is a correlation, and not every family can arrange its life this way. You will often see a minimum percentage of exposure quoted online. No proven minimum exists.

Speaking your language will not harm their English. In the study of Spanish-speaking mothers above, more English from mothers did not improve children's English, but it did slow their Spanish vocabulary (Hammer et al., 2009). Limit: one population, in the United States.

Ask for it, warmly and directly. In small studies, children were most likely to switch language when the parent made the request clear, such as "How do you say that in Igbo?" (Kasuya, 1998; Tare & Gelman, 2011). Pretending not to understand English is often suggested, but in one study toddlers mostly just repeated themselves in the same language (Nicoladis & Genesee, 1998). Limit: these studies measured the next sentence, not long-term outcomes.

Repeat it back correctly rather than marking it wrong. When a young child makes a mistake, saying the sentence back correctly, as part of the conversation, has been found to help grammar (Saxton, 1997; Saxton, Backley & Gallaway, 2005). What looks more harmful is pressure. In interviews with Turkish-Dutch families, an adult daughter described being corrected angrily by her mother as a child, and being scared to speak as a result (Sevinç, 2022). Limit: that evidence is small and based on adults looking back. The safest reading is that gentle correction is fine, and making the language feel like a test is not.

Live people beat screens. Toddlers learned no more words from a popular baby DVD than children who did not watch it (DeLoache et al., 2010). Toddlers did learn new words through live, responsive video chat (Roseberry, Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff, 2014). A video call with grandma counts. Cartoons in the background count for less.

Visits help. Among Greek-heritage children in Canada and New York, visits to and from Greece predicted larger Greek vocabularies (Chondrogianni & Daskalaki, 2023). Limit: a correlation, and trips are expensive.

If you are not fluent yourself

Many parents searching for this are carrying a quieter worry: their own Yoruba or Igbo is patchy. Perhaps they understand more than they speak, which is exactly the pattern they now see in their child.

If that is you, you are in large company. A study of three generations of Turkish families in the Netherlands found that anxiety about speaking the heritage language was common among the second and third generations, including inside the family (Sevinç & Dewaele, 2018).

Here is the honest position on the research: nobody has yet studied whether a parent speaking an imperfect heritage language helps or hinders their child. We would rather tell you that than invent an answer.

What is known points in a useful direction. Studies of immigrant families found that children benefited when they heard a language from more people, and from fluent speakers (Place & Hoff, 2011; Hoff, Core & Shanks, 2020). That suggests a practical approach. Use the Yoruba or Igbo you have, for greetings, routines, praise, food, songs and teasing, and bring fluent speakers into your child's week: grandparents on video, aunties and uncles, community events, a tutor.

You can also learn alongside your child. Admitting "I'm still learning this word too" shows your child the language matters enough to keep working at. It does not undermine your authority.

When structured practice helps

If nobody at home speaks the language fluently every day, regular contact with someone who does becomes more important. That is where lessons, a Saturday school or an app can fill a gap.

Families in UK community language schools have reported valuing them, and children used them to build bilingual identities (Creese et al., 2009). That research did not measure language progress, so it supports the social value of these schools rather than any promise of fluency.

Whatever you consider, these questions follow from the research above:

• Does your child speak, or mostly listen? Speaking is the skill most at risk, so look for sessions where your child talks for much of the time.
• Is it live? A responsive person teaches young children more than a recording does.
• Is the teacher a fluent speaker, and can they match your family's dialect?
• Does it feel safe? Your child should leave wanting to come back, not feeling tested.
• Does it fit a child's attention span? Shorter, frequent sessions usually suit young children better than long, rare ones.
• Is there something to do between sessions? Practice in the days between keeps the language present.

Lingawa, which publishes this blog, is one option: one-to-one online Yoruba and Igbo lessons with native-speaking tutors for children from age 5, with 25-minute lessons for under-7s, a children's curriculum for ages 5 to 8 and 9 to 12, and an app with storybooks and games for practice between lessons. A Saturday school, a church group, a relative who calls every Sunday, or a local tutor may suit your family just as well. What matters most is that your child keeps hearing the language, keeps having reasons to speak it, and keeps enjoying it.

Research summarised November 2026. Most studies cited involve languages other than Yoruba and Igbo; we have noted where findings may not transfer directly.