How To Reconnect With A Childhood Language

A reader named Adriana sent me a question about reconnecting with a childhood language.

She wrote: “When I was young I only knew Italian as my parents spoke it at home. But, because we live in Canada, they switched to English when I started school. I’m 29 and want to learn Italian again. Would I need to learn from scratch? Or do I have a subconscious advantage?”

A heritage language — one you grew up hearing or speaking as a young child, but later lost — sits in a strange place in your mind. It feels like it should still be there somewhere, just out of reach.

So is it? And if it is, how do you get it back? Here’s what's worth knowing if you’re hoping to reconnect with a heritage language of your own.

What Is A Heritage Language, Anyway?

Adriana’s story is a textbook example. Her parents spoke Italian to her at home, and for the first few years of her life that was simply her language. Then, when she reached school age, the household switched to English.

Usually the reason parents do this is that they think it will be easier for the child to settle into local life if they’re fully immersed in the local language — English at home, English at school.

And before you know it, the original language fades into the background and becomes a distant memory.

This happens to people all over the world. I have a friend in Los Angeles who told me almost exactly the same thing: her mother used to speak to her in Chinese, and she was apparently fluent in Mandarin at the age of five. Then it stopped, and over the years it slipped away.

That language — the one tied to your family and your upbringing — is what we mean by a heritage language. The big question is what, if anything, is left of it.

Is The Language Still In There Somewhere?

So what’s actually left in your head? Is it gone, or is it still there waiting to be uncovered?

I think, without a doubt, there is a huge amount still in your mind — it has just been hibernating for a very long time. It hasn’t seen the light of day in years, but that doesn’t mean it has vanished.

Think about how much exposure a child gets in those early years. If you spent even two or three years hearing nothing but your heritage language at home, that is more than enough for a young child to learn to speak.

A three-year-old can already speak coherently. It won’t be perfect — the verb conjugations won’t all be there and the vocabulary will be simple — but a very well-formed understanding of the language gets built into the brain.

And here’s the crucial part: those first few years are exactly when your brain is at its most malleable. It’s forming at its most important developmental stage.

So I find it inconceivable that everything you absorbed in that window has simply disappeared and become irretrievable, even after twenty or twenty-five years have gone by.

The language you spoke and heard back then almost certainly helped shape how your mind developed.

Do Heritage Language Learners Have An Advantage?

Here’s where I want to be honest, because the practical reality is a little more complicated.

It’s all very well to say the language is still in there, but if it doesn’t come out of your mouth, what good is it? And when it comes to what to do practically, I don’t think there are any magic buttons you can press.

My honest view is that you should expect to put in roughly the same amount of work as someone learning the language from scratch — or at least proceed on that basis.

I don’t think it’s smart to go looking for shortcuts, or to assume you can get away without doing the work because you spoke it as a child.

The most likely scenario is that things simply come a little more naturally to you: words you knew long ago start to pop back into your head, and certain things get reactivated as you go. But you’ll still have to do the work, like everyone else.

Look at it this way. Imagine, for the sake of argument, that none of your childhood knowledge transfers — that it’s all been forgotten. Where does that leave you? In exactly the same boat as everyone else, which is perfectly fine.

It just means approaching it with the attitude of: I’m going to study hard and try my best. That’s the worst-case scenario.

The best case is that it all comes flooding back in different ways and you learn very quickly. Either way, the right mindset is to take it seriously and treat it as seriously as you would any brand-new language.

Your Real Advantage As A Heritage Language Learner

If you ask me where the genuine advantage lies, it’s not really a linguistic one — it’s a motivational one. If your family and your heritage are tied to this language, that gives you far more reason to keep going than someone learning it purely as a hobby.

Motivation is what keeps you studying when the novelty wears off, and a heritage language has a deep, personal source of it built right in.

The way to tap into that is to reconnect with the things that made the language part of you in the first place.

• That might mean the old TV shows or cartoons you used to watch as a child.
• It might mean visiting the parts of the country your family is from, or learning more about that region.
• It might mean reconnecting with relatives — perhaps you have family who only speak the language, and you could get on a video call and talk to them.

Whatever form it takes, it works because the language is a part of who you are. That connection will motivate you far more than it ever could someone with no personal link to the place.

Why Motivation Matters More Than You’d Think

I’ll give you a counter-example from my own experience. I learnt Italian a while back, and I documented the whole thing week by week so people could see exactly what I did.

But even having learnt the language, I’ve found it genuinely difficult to stay motivated to keep it up. I thought I’d use it all the time, and in practice I barely use it at all — and it’s been hard to come up with ways to keep using it.

The reason is simple: I have no real connection to Italy. There was nothing pulling me back to the language once the initial project was over. For someone reconnecting with a heritage language, that’s the exact opposite of your situation.

Your family, your culture and your sense of identity are all reasons to keep going — an endless source of motivation that someone like me just doesn’t have.

That’s a real and lasting advantage, even if it isn’t the subconscious shortcut you might have been hoping for.

How To Get Started With Your Heritage Language

So how do you actually put this into practice? My advice comes down to two things working together.

First, knuckle down and study hard — approach the language with the seriousness you’d give any new language, without waiting for a shortcut that may not come.

Second, and just as importantly, do everything you can to reconnect with your family and your heritage along the way. Lean into the personal side of it:

• Watch the films and programmes you remember from childhood.
• Plan a trip to where your family comes from.
• Reach out to relatives and use the language with them, even haltingly at first.
• Learn about your family’s history and the place they’re from.

Each of these things does double duty: it gives you real, meaningful exposure to the language, and it keeps your motivation burning. That combination — honest hard work plus a deep personal connection — is what will make it stick.

Heritage Language FAQ

The Shared Journey Is the Point

Reconnecting with a heritage language is one of the most rewarding projects you can take on.

There may not be a magic switch that brings it all flooding back overnight, and you should be prepared to work as hard as anyone else who’s starting out.

But there is almost certainly far more left in your mind than you realise, quietly waiting to be reawakened — and even in the worst case, you’re no worse off than any other learner.

The real gift of a heritage language is the motivation that comes with it: the chance to reconnect with your family, your culture and a part of yourself you thought was lost.

So take it seriously, study hard, and let your heritage pull you forward. Reconnect with the people and places behind the language, and the words will follow. It’s an exciting thing to do, and I genuinely believe it can become a source of long-term happiness.

Olly Richards

Creator of the StoryLearning® Method

Olly Richards is a renowned polyglot and language learning expert with over 15 years of experience teaching millions through his innovative StoryLearning® method. He is the creator of StoryLearning, one of the world's largest language learning blogs with 500,000+ monthly readers.

Olly has authored 30+ language learning books and courses, including the bestselling "Short Stories" series published by Teach Yourself.

When not developing new teaching methods, Richards practices what he preaches—he speaks 8 languages fluently and continues learning new ones through his own methodology.