“Mama, what does that word mean?”
Have you struggled to speak your language with your children and grandchildren? You’re not alone. Across Europe and beyond, many African parents and grandparents are facing the same challenge: how to pass on our African languages and cultures to the next generation in a world that speaks something else.
In a time when cultural retention can feel fragile, teaching children to speak their mother tongue has become quite a mission in many households. Language isn’t just a way to communicate; it is a deep part of our identity, our values, and where we come from. For families living far from home, preserving your African languages is one of the most powerful ways to help the next generation stay connected to their roots.
Whether it’s teaching your children Amharic proverbs, getting them to sing in Zulu,Tigrinya, or making sure they greet elders in Lingala. Having them learn the African language is the answer to keeping them grounded back home, like nothing else.
Thankfully, the struggles of having them learn these languages in a far-away land are better with technology. These apps to teach your children and grandchildren African language are perfect as you go around your busy schedule and have to raise the kids. They are fun and kid-friendly. Let’s check them out.
UTalk
UTalk supports over 140 languages, including Amharic, Zulu, Swahili, Somali, and many more. UTalk is so great because it brings learning African languages to life with native speaker audio, real situations, and entertaining games. It is essentially child-friendly, teen-friendly, and adult-friendly. Moreover, it doesn’t need an internet connection once downloaded.
Fully Fluent
Fully Fluent is a fully AI-powered language learning app that helps with practice via conversation and personalized feedback for your kid’s learning. It offers various aspects like real-life scenarios, vocabulary building, and grammar principles, all helping to ensure language learning is fun and effective. The interface of Fully Fluent is one of the things that many users find attractive.
Nkenne
Nkenne, with its over 70,000 users, is a language learning app that focuses mainly on teaching African languages. Its mission is to preserve the African cultural heritage through the learning of languages. Nkenne is a highly recommended learning app that provides lessons for nine African languages, including Somali, Swahili, Twi, Hausa, Zulu, and Amharic. The lessons incorporate cultural contexts, proverbs, and folklore to help your children and grandchildren with a deeper understanding of the language and how it fits into culture.
Ling App
Ling App is a great language learning app for African kids. The app supports African languages like Swahili, Zulu, and more. It has a gamified learning design and bite-sized lessons that make African language learning fun and second-nature for both kids and adults.
LingQ
LingQ is all about learning through content like news, podcasts, and stories. If your kids or grand kids are readers already, then this essentially helps them build fluency over time. It is currently available in Swahili, with more languages coming shortly. It is a great choice because it combines both audio and text and helps you, as a parent, track your kids’ progress. Whether you’re an Eritrean mom in London or a Somalian granddad in Germany. One of the most intentional gifts you can share is the passing down of your African language. Some of these free and paid African language learning apps will make it easier and fun for you to introduce your children and grandchildren to their heritage. It all starts with a hello in your language!
