🌟 Japan-Based NRI Mom Sreelakshmi Recommends Aashaan for NRI Kids
For Malayali parents living abroad, teaching children to speak their mother tongue is only half the battle. Teaching them to read and write it is usually where the real struggle begins.
In a recent vlog of her popular series “Oru Japan Jeevitham” (A Japan Life), Malayali lifestyle vlogger Sreelakshmi shared her daily routine, cooking up some delicious spinach thoran and tomato moru curry. But amid the cooking, she addressed a very common question from her followers: How are her kids, Jikku and Kichchu, learning Malayalam while attending an international school in Japan?
The NRI Parenting Struggle
Sreelakshmi perfectly captures the reality of many expat families: her boys speak Malayalam fluently at home, but they couldn’t read or write a single letter.
She admitted that she had tried to sit them down and teach them the traditional way multiple times, but it always ended in failure and frustration. Kids today simply don’t respond well to dry, textbook-style language lessons.
Enter Aashaan: Making Malayalam Fun
To bridge this gap, Sreelakshmi introduced her kids to the Aashaan app. In the video, Jikku and Kichchuu are seen happily engrossed in their Malayalam lessons.
Here is what Sreelakshmi highlighted about their experience with Aashaan:
- Interactive Writing: The kids aren’t just staring at a screen; they are actively tracing and writing the Malayalam letters directly on the mobile device.
- Reading Practice: Sreelakshmi shows the boys proudly sounding out words like “Paatha” (പാത), “Meera” (മീര), and “Paya” (പായ) through Aashaan’s structured reading courses.
- Healthy Competition: The app turns learning into a gamified experience. Sreelakshmi notes that her kids now cheerfully compete with each other to read Malayalam words.
- Independent Learning: Because it’s on a mobile device, the kids can practice on their own during their free time without requiring constant hand-holding from a parent.
While Sreelakshmi, like any good parent, is careful to limit overall screen time, she is thrilled that the time they do spend on the app is actively teaching them their mother tongue.
Why it matters for Expat Kids
For NRI and expat children, the connection to Kerala often fades if they cannot read the language. Traditional methods fail because they are slow and academic. Aashaan works because it is mobile-first, highly interactive, and designed for immediate reading success.
If you are an NRI parent struggling to get your kids interested in learning the Malayalam script, take a page out of Sreelakshmi’s book!
Check out Aashaan to start learning the Malayalam script the easiest way:
Team Aashaan