My son has been dipping into French for years. Like many children learning a second language, his experience has mostly been built from his French school, books at home, the occasional practice conversation at home. But last summer, in Paris, something shifted for my kiddo.

At home, practicing language feels like homework for kids… and also the parents. Children resist it. They reply in English. As a parent, I dutifully nudge and remind my child to practice. I also often feel suddenly dreadfully tired and get distracted. And if you’re raising a bilingual or multilingual child too, I’m sure there are moments when you quietly wonder what you are doing it all for. It may also be loud, exasperated, wondering.

Then travel has a way of throwing everyone in the deep end.

In Paris, my kiddo did a lot of reading train maps to get us to the Tower. He even guided us past the Arc via bus. Last: He overheard someone say that a famous person “Ishowspeed” was going to be at the Parc des Princes while we were there. I cannot say that I caught this tidbit of info. It is hard to translate the young generation’s heroes… However by the screams of the children, I got the gist of it.

In Paris, French was no longer an exercise. It was not a drill. We were submerged in the language around us. My son suddenly needed it—for ordering food, for saying thank you, for getting directions on public transit, for asking for the particular pastry he wanted at the bakery. These weren’t basic sentences. They were real interactions with real people.

His French wasn’t confident. But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that he realized something important: language is not just something you study. It is something you use (to see famous people for example). For the first time, I could see that shift in him.

As a parent who cares deeply about language learning, I’ve always believed that exposure matters more than perfection. Children absorb language through real experiences—such as swimming in a public pool in Paris. (Oh, yes we did, Speedo from the vending machine and all!) There is nothing quite like being told you're not allowed to wear an American-style bathing suit in French, to help you question reality. The only better story is that we ALSO went swimming in the Seine. (Yes, we did.) Our trip accelerated his interest in learning French because it surrounded him with the language in a way that is difficult to recreate at home.

That moment in Paris—standing at the entrance to a public playground with far superior play equipment, my son reading the French sign and trying to determine if we could enter for free or had to pay — was a reminder of why we make the effort. (It was free of course) Why we keep reading the books, practicing the words, and building those small daily habits. Experiences, like the ones we had in Paris, remind me why consistent exposure to the deep end matter.

I would love to hear from other parents:
Have your children ever had a moment where a language suddenly clicked for them? 🌍

Paris - Soaking up French

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