How are parents of Gen Z kids managing to get them fluent in vernac? It’s a mission when we ourselves speak as much English as we do, and kids spend so much time consuming English at school and on tv and the net.

So many of these kids can hear their mother-tongue but only respond in English, or they don’t even understand at all. The latter stresses me out so much.

My Sesotho is not great, but it’s not awful either. I know the factors that have contributed to that: speaking mostly English at home and school, not having a relationship with extended fam, attending English churches all my life and not doing a day of it at school either.

I don’t think I stood a fighting chance. I’ve done the best with what I’ve been dealt. What happens though, is that we move down a generation, and those things just get amplified.

I don’t want the kids in my life to be in a worse position than I am when it comes to this.

So what now?!? How does one fix this?