Are Grandma and Summer Camp the Real Secret to Kids’ Chinese?

Let’s be honest: for most families in English-speaking countries, the ones who truly kept their Chinese weren’t relying just on homework and apps—they had a deeper reason. It might have been grandparents who only spoke Mandarin, making language the doorway to love. Or summers “back home,” with Chinese not as a chore but as how you found snacks, argued over the window seat, and made new friends. Those seasons weren’t lessons. They were life.

At home, many parents know this dance. Start the conversation in Mandarin; get an answer in English. Sometimes letting it slide feels easier. But what I notice, more than anything, is this: when there’s a real reason to use Mandarin—someone they adore, a joke that only lands in Chinese, a place where everyone else is speaking it—they stop noticing the effort.

The science backs up what our guts already know. Babies and young children learn differently from real people than from recordings. In those famous experiments with American infants exposed to Mandarin, the ones who interacted with live speakers picked up the sounds; the ones who only watched videos didn’t. Something about eye contact, turn-taking, and the back-and-forth of a human moment flips the switch.

If you’re wondering whether the bilingual-school or after-school routine is enough on its own, here’s what I’ve learned (sometimes the hard way). When Mandarin is woven into joy, real relationships, and the world around them, my kids lean in on their own. Literacy and grammar matter, but first comes the spark. For now, I’m greedy for the giggles, the inside jokes, the family's video chat in Chinese, story podcasts they beg to finish. Those are the anchors that hold when motivation wobbles.

If you grew up with weekend Chinese school and a complicated relationship with tones and tests, I see you. I’m not throwing out literacy; I’m changing the order. Joy first. People first. Then, when the spark is alive, the characters have something to stick to.

Stay tuned for news about our Mandarin total-immersion camps in Taiwan and China. My hope is simple: give our kids the kind of seasons that make them forget they’re “practicing” at all, and give us parents a chance to watch the language become theirs, naturally.

How have you passed on your heritage language, or helped your kids embrace a new one? What gave you that spark? Share your story below—let’s keep building a global community where language is lived, not just learned.