Culture,  Indian Culture

Best Ways to Learn Gujarati For Parents & Children

My life has always been a linguistic mess. My parents spoke English to me, to each other they spoke Marathi and my mother spoke Gujarati, English, Marathi, and Hindi.

Not to mention my years of learning French and living in Sweden speaking Swedish, it’s a giant language mess!

Flash forward to today where we speak Swedish and English at home. I have never been a fluent, or even high level speaker of my native Indian language (regrets abound there), which means my children have limited exposure.

The last few months though I have been looking around for ways to improve my Gujarati, my mother’s language. Googling didn’t get me anywhere and the few books I have on hand are boring, pedantic, and literally not-colorful. I began searching on Instagram. Not by hashtags, but by following friends of friends.

Yes, that’s how desperate I was to find a way to learn Gujarati as a foreigner.

And this led me to the jackpot. First, I found Sanskar Teaching. Vaishali is India born and moved to the US while in high school. This is important because she understands how we learn in the US (not by route memorization) and can pull from creative teaching styles.

She offers live online classes for children (and adults!) as well as, go at your pace Gujarati classes. To supplement there are flash cards and games (see my review on them) and digital downloads. You can also join the email newsletter and receive loads of freebies. Currently available are bhajans for children!

The second person I met on Instagram, whom I don’t know personally but am in complete awe of her, is Sage_ness. Sejal is a Indian American Gujarati mom of four children and raises them in a fully immersed Montessori Gujarati life.

Yes, Montessori teaching in Gujarati. She focuses on how have a Montessori home through the eyes of an Indian family. You can find Hindi and Gujarati sandpaper letters, color wheel, and even a make your own Diwali rangoli.

Both Sanskar Teaching and Sage-Ness are a great place to start your language immersion into Gujarati. Find them on Instagram and their websites to get started on your Gujarati language journey.

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