GrandkinsHow can my kids talk to their grandmother who doesn't speak English?
The real problem isn't the call, it's the language
Most families already have a way to video call. What breaks the relationship is that the kids and their grandmother can't actually talk: every conversation runs through a parent interpreting, the kids drift off, and calls get shorter and rarer. When a child becomes the family translator, the conversation belongs to the translation, not to them.
What a translated call changes
On Grandkins, your kids just talk. Their grandmother hears them in her language and answers in her own, and they hear her in English. Jokes land. Questions get asked directly. She learns what they're actually like, not what a tired parent summarizes.
Something to do together helps too. With Read together, she can read a children's picture book with the kids on a call: both see the same page, the pages turn together, and the words appear in each person's language where the book has them. And every Sunday the family gets one question to ask each other, like "Who was your best friend in school?"
Between calls: messages that arrive translated
Time zones make live calls hard, so Grandkins translates messages too. A child can hold the microphone and say something in English, or record a short video, and grandma gets it in her language as text and as a spoken translation. She replies in her own words and the kids get it back in English.
She doesn't need to be good with phones
She uses the same app as everyone else, with the same screens. The app can say out loud who is calling, calls can answer themselves after a short countdown if you turn that on, and an "Ask for help" button lets her tell you when she's stuck.
Common questions
My kids only speak English. Will she really understand them?
Yes. The kids speak English; she hears a translated voice in her own language with captions, and her replies come back to the kids in English the same way.
Can the kids call her without me organizing every call?
Yes. Once you allow it, they call each other directly from the app, and you stop being the switchboard.
What if she's not comfortable with technology?
She joins with a 6-letter code (no email, no password), and you can read it to her over the phone. The app can announce who is calling, and calls can answer themselves if you turn that on for her.
Which languages can she speak?
Any of Grandkins' 36: English, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Punjabi, Urdu, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Greek, Turkish, Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, Chinese (Mandarin), Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Filipino, Thai, Indonesian, Malay, Burmese, Khmer, Nepali and Swahili.
Does the translation handle respectful, affectionate family speech?
It's tuned for family conversation: kinship words, warmth, and the respectful forms elders expect, rather than stiff business language.
Is anything recorded?
Calls are never recorded. The written words of each call are kept in your family's Memories, and a short video moment is saved only when someone chooses to. Anyone can turn Memories off during a call.
Try it with your own family
Setup takes a few minutes: add your family, pick each person's language, and send each of them a 6-letter code. Plans start at $9.99 a month for the whole family, and every family starts with a free trial of 14 days or 60 translated minutes.
Start your family's free trial