Raising Bilingual Children in the UK: 7 Tips Every Multilingual Family Needs to Know
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If you're raising a child in the UK with a language other than English at home, you already know how it feels. You speak to them in Arabic, in Portuguese, in Polish, and they reply in English. You wonder if you're doing enough. You worry the language is slipping away before it's even fully arrived.
I started Clara's Little Library because I felt exactly this. I couldn't find books for my own daughter in my native language, and I realised that what I was looking for wasn't just a book, it was a way to make the language feel real, present, and worth holding onto.
The UK is home to around 800,000 Polish speakers, over 200,000 Arabic speakers, and close to 500,000 Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese speakers. Hundreds of thousands of families are navigating exactly this, raising little ones between two worlds, two languages, two cultures. This post is for them.
These are the things that actually work.
1. Stop Worrying That Two Languages Will Confuse Them
This is the first thing to put down, because the worry itself can quietly undermine everything else.
The idea that a second language "confuses" children or delays their English has been studied extensively and the evidence simply doesn't support it. Speech-language pathologists who work specifically with bilingual children are consistent on this: children raised with two languages from birth are not confused, they're doing something more cognitively demanding than their monolingual peers, and their brains adapt accordingly.
What looks like confusion, mixing words from both languages in the same sentence, for example, is actually a normal and healthy part of bilingual development. Linguists call it code-switching, and it's a sign that both languages are active and accessible, not that one is interfering with the other.
For Arabic families, this might mean your child says ana want that. For Portuguese and Brazilian families, it might be eu don't know. For Polish families, nie I can't. This is not a problem to fix. It's a child managing two language systems simultaneously which is, when you stop to think about it, genuinely impressive.
2. Make Your Native Language the Language of Home
The most consistent finding in bilingual development research is straightforward: children acquire the languages they hear regularly, in meaningful contexts, from people they love. The home environment is where you have the most control and the most influence.
Research from the US Department of Education puts it plainly: speaking your native language to your children from birth helps build their minds and prepares them for long-term success. Crucially, it also finds that children whose native language is maintained at home learn English more easily not less easily. The two languages support each other rather than competing.
For Arabic-speaking families, making Arabic the default language at home means your child hears the sounds, rhythms, and script of the language in its most natural context — from you. Arabic phonology is quite different from English, and early exposure to those sounds is something no classroom can replicate later.
For Portuguese and Brazilian families, this is especially worth holding onto. Portuguese and English share Latin roots, which means children often develop a strong intuitive bridge between the two, but only if Portuguese has been a consistent presence from the start. Whether your family speaks European Portuguese or Brazilian Portuguese, the written language is shared, and the home is where it lives most naturally.
For Polish families, the case is particularly urgent given how dominant English becomes once a child starts school. Polish communities in the UK are vibrant in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Peterborough but the school environment will be English almost entirely. Home is where Polish breathes.
3. Read Together in Your Native Language, Every Day
If there is one single habit that research points to above all others, it's this: reading aloud, regularly, in the native language.
A 2024 study on bilingual shared reading found something important: when parents read books written in their native language with their children, they naturally use that language more and with higher quality than in everyday conversation. Having a book in your language gives you permission to be fully in your language. The book becomes a container for the language in a way that casual talk sometimes isn't.
For Arabic-speaking families, books that introduce the Arabic alphabet — Alef baa Taa are a natural starting point. The Arabic script is quite different from anything your child sees at school or on the street in the UK, so having it present at home in a beautiful, playful book makes it familiar rather than foreign. Classic stories like lift-the-flap books work well because the interactive format keeps little ones engaged even before they can read a word.
For Portuguese and Brazilian families, fairy tales are particularly powerful, A Pequena Sereia, O Capuchinho Vermelho, Branca de Neve, A Bela Adormecida. Children who already know the story in English find that hearing it in Portuguese unlocks the language in a completely different way. The story is the scaffold; the language comes along for the ride. This works equally well whether your family speaks European or Brazilian Portuguese, the stories are the same, and the written language is shared.
For Polish families, phrase-based books that explore everyday scenarios, at the beach, on the farm, in the forest, are a gentle and natural way to build vocabulary with children who are primarily English-speaking at school. Books that frame Polish as something to discover rather than something to be tested on tend to land much better with older toddlers and early school-age children.
The key is consistency over perfection. Ten minutes of reading in your native language every night is worth more than an hour of irregular, pressured sessions. Make it part of the bedtime routine and it becomes something children associate with comfort, closeness, and the language — which is exactly the emotional connection you're trying to build.
Browse our bilingual Arabic, Portuguese, and Polish children's books →
4. Don't Abandon Your Language When They Reply in English
This is the one that catches most parents out because it feels natural, even kind, to switch to English when your child responds in English. You understand them, they understand you, the conversation flows. Why insist?
But researchers who study minority language maintenance are clear: language loss can begin as early as preschool, and it accelerates the moment children sense that English is the "useful" language and the native language is optional. The moment you consistently switch to English when they reply in English, you've inadvertently confirmed that instinct.
This doesn't mean you have to be rigid or make your child feel uncomfortable. It means continuing to speak your language to them even when they reply in English — and trusting that comprehension is real language development, even when production lags behind.
For many bilingual children raised in English-dominant environments, there's a gap between what they understand and what they choose to produce. A Polish child might understand everything their grandparents say but answer in English. An Arabic child might follow the full family dinner conversation but default to English when they speak. A Brazilian child might sing along perfectly to a Portuguese song but reach for English in their own sentences. This is normal. Comprehension comes first, production follows, especially if the native language remains present and valued at home.
5. Bring in the Grandparents (and Anyone Else Who Only Speaks Your Language)
One of the most powerful natural motivators for a child to use their native language is simple: someone they love who doesn't speak English.
Grandparents, aunts, uncles, family friends anyone who communicates primarily or exclusively in Arabic, Portuguese, or Polish becomes a living reason for a child to use the language. When children want to connect with someone, they find the words. The motivation to communicate is one of the strongest drivers of language acquisition there is.
If family visits are infrequent, video calls are genuinely effective for young children, more so than many parents expect. A regular weekly call with a grandparent in Lisbon, São Paulo, Warsaw, or Amman, even ten minutes long, keeps the language emotionally alive in a way no book or app can fully replicate. The face, the voice, the relationship, these are what make a language feel worth speaking.
6. Lean Into Culture, Not Just Language
Language and culture are inseparable, and one of the most effective things you can do is make the culture of your native language visible and celebrated at home, not just the language itself.
Food is one of the most powerful routes in. Cooking together and naming things in Arabic, Portuguese, or Polish, the ingredients, the steps, the tools, embeds vocabulary in physical, sensory memory. Children who learn a word while making bacalhau or pierogi or maqluba don't forget it.
Music is another. Songs in your native language — children's songs, nursery rhymes, songs from your own childhood, carry the rhythm and phonology of the language in a way that sticks. Many Polish, Portuguese, Brazilian, and Arabic children's songs are available on YouTube and streaming platforms. Background listening during car journeys or mealtimes is low-effort exposure that compounds over time.
Festivals, traditions, stories from your own childhood, all of these give the native language a world to live in, not just a function to serve.
7. Be Patient With Yourself — and With Them
Raising a bilingual child in an English-dominant country is genuinely hard work. It requires consistency over years, not weeks. There will be phases where the native language feels like it's receding, and phases where it suddenly blooms. There will be days when you're too tired to insist, and that's fine.
Studies that follow bilingual families over time find that children who maintained their native language at home showed stronger self-esteem, better cultural identity, and stronger family bonds, particularly with grandparents and extended family, than those who shifted to English exclusively. The language is doing more than linguistic work. It is connecting your child to a family, a history, a sense of who they are.
That's worth the effort. Even when it doesn't feel like it's working.
A Note About Bilingual Books
One of the reasons we started stocking Arabic, Portuguese, and Polish books at Clara's Little Library is that having a book in your language at home sends a quiet but powerful signal to a child: this language belongs here. It normalises the language in a way that conversation alone sometimes doesn't.
Bilingual books with both languages on the same page, are particularly useful because they make the two languages visually equal. Neither is the "main" version. Both belong. For children who spend all day in an English-language school, that visual equality matters more than you might think.
We hand-pick every title in our collection with this in mind. If you're not sure where to start, feel free to get in touch, we're always happy to help you find the right books for your little one's age, language level, and interests.
Shop bilingual Arabic children's books →
Shop bilingual Portuguese children's books →
Shop bilingual Polish children's books →
Clara's Little Library is an independent UK bookshop specialising in bilingual and multilingual children's books. Founded by a parent who couldn't find books in their own native language, we exist to make sure no family has to search as hard as we did.
With love, Raf, Founder of Clara's Little Library x