We are moving to Australia in the summer of 2026, with two kids. Joris is six, Linnea is two. In Australia, almost everything runs in English: school, the playground, the till at the supermarket. This post describes how we are preparing Joris for that switch on the language side. Which app we use, what works in everyday life, why we deliberately do nothing with Linnea, and what actually worries us about all of this. Not a how-to, just our real experience. For families planning something similar.
If you are at the start of your planning, first read our overview of how we are preparing our kids for the move overall. This article here goes deep on one piece of that: the language.
- We are preparing Joris (6) for English daily life, not for English class. School in Australia only starts in January 2027.
- Our main tool is the children's learning app StudyCat: about twice a week, around one hour each time, 17.99 EUR per month.
- With Linnea (2) we deliberately do nothing active. She picks things up on the side.
- Our bigger worry is not the language but Joris's reserve around new people, and missing the mother tongue in everyday life.
English before school, not for school
We are not preparing Joris for English class. We are preparing him for everyday life.
That is a different thing. Joris will only start school in Australia in January 2027, because the Australian school year begins in January. By then we will already have been in the country for a good half year. During that time we will be meeting friends a lot, and with them we speak English anyway. So Joris has plenty of time to settle into the language long before the classroom gets real.
In many accounts from other families we keep reading the same thing: kids learn the language astonishingly fast once their environment speaks it. Some say their kids started speaking after about three months. Whether that will be the same with Joris, we do not know. But it takes the pressure off having to teach him perfect English in advance.
Our goal is therefore small: a base vocabulary to get going. A few words and sentences so he does not feel completely lost at the start. The rest is done by the environment.
A learning app, even though we are basically against iPad
Here I need to be honest. A learning app on an iPad does not really fit with us.
At home, Joris is otherwise not allowed on the tablet. He watches at most one short film a week, about ten minutes, on a fixed day. No more screen time than that. That is a deliberate decision, and bringing an app into the picture was a real shift in how we do things.
We did not make it easy on ourselves. There is a seven-day free trial, which we used. After that we decided: yes, this makes sense. The app is called StudyCat, it is built for kids, and Joris has had fun with it from day one. More importantly, he actually learns. The words stick.
The subscription costs 17.99 EUR per month. Not exactly cheap. For us the value is worth it. Right now it is our most important tool for the preparation, and it is a tool that works. By the way, we earn nothing from naming it here. We mention StudyCat because we use it, not because anyone is paying for it.
How Joris learns with StudyCat, and what we add in everyday life
Joris has been using the app since 23 March 2026. Not every day. That was clear from the start.
He is on it roughly twice a week, about an hour each time. After that you can see the effort in his face. He himself would probably go longer, but we deliberately set the limit. Learning a language should not become a burden for him, it should stay something he enjoys.
The interesting thing is how the app grows with him. At the start it was mostly about repeating words and easy games. By now he is at a point where sometimes an image shows up and he has to say the matching word into the microphone himself. Honestly, I find that already quite demanding. He does it anyway.
We do not leave it to the app alone, though. We build on it. Sometimes we address him with simple English sentences, "how old are you" for example. He often understands the sentence and answers with a single word. That is plenty. It is about understanding, not about perfect sentences.
The nicest moment we had was in the car. An English song was playing on the radio, honestly not my kind of music, I think it was "Swim" by BTS. Out of nowhere Joris asked: "Why do they want to swim?" He had simply picked up from the English lyrics what it was about. Moments like that show us something is sticking. And right now we do not expect more than that.
Linnea (2): Why we deliberately do nothing with her
With Linnea we do not do anything actively. At two years old, you also do not have to.
The funny thing is, she is learning anyway. Sometimes she sits next to Joris when he uses the app and just babbles along. Sometimes she points at something and asks "what is that called". That is her way of saying: tell me the English name for it.
The interest comes entirely on its own. We do not have to spark it. Linnea will learn English the way small kids learn languages best: on the side, in everyday life, together with the whole family, while she grows. She is the one we worry about the least.
Australian English: The slang no app teaches
One thing no app teaches: Australian English.
We know a bit of it already. Lucy and I both lived in Australia before we moved back to Germany. Australians love to shorten things, and they do it with a lot of things. Afternoon becomes "arvo", breakfast becomes "brekky", a barbecue is the "barbie". Lucy's name sounds short and Australian already, but her colleagues back then still turned it into "Luc", pronounced "Lus".
Sentences like "how ya doin mate" are not in any school book. But we do not believe you have to drill that kind of thing in advance. It comes on its own once you are there. We focus on the basics. The rest Joris will pick up on site by himself, probably faster than we will.
What actually worries us, and it is not the English
Language learning itself does not worry us. Joris is making progress, Linnea grows into it, it will be fine.
What occupies us more are two other things.
The first is about Joris's character. He is rather reserved in new situations and around new people. That is okay, that is just who he is. But new people and a new language at the same time, that is a lot at once. That combination sits with us. On the other hand we see a real opportunity in exactly that. It can be a big step in his development when he realises: I can do this.
The second is quieter. It is less about the kids and more about us as a family. At home, when we are the four of us, we will keep speaking German. But the rest of daily life runs in English. Shopping, work, paperwork, all of it. We are asking ourselves whether at some point you start missing your own language around you. Whether it can trigger homesickness when you no longer communicate in your mother tongue in everyday life. It is only a small worry. But it is there, and we do not want to talk it away.
What we realistically expect
Joris will not speak fluent English when we arrive in Australia. We are completely clear on that, and it is not the goal either.
What we realistically expect: he arrives with a small base vocabulary. He understands simple sentences, can answer with single words, and has a feel for the sound of the language. That takes the first hurdle away. The rest is done by life on the ground: the friends, the playground, later the school.
We believe preparation here does not mean making the child finished before he gets there. Preparation means giving him a soft entry and the feeling that he is not starting from zero. That is all it takes. The rest he can do himself, probably better than we think.
Why we are doing this whole step in the first place, we have written down elsewhere: in our story from the vegetable garden to Australia.
Frequently asked questions
How do you prepare a child for English before moving to Australia?
We focus on a small base vocabulary rather than fluent English. Concretely we use the children's learning app StudyCat, about twice a week, and we sprinkle simple English sentences into everyday life. The goal is a soft entry, not fluent English before departure.
Which app do we use to teach our child English?
We use StudyCat, a language learning app for kids. The subscription costs 17.99 EUR per month and there is a seven-day free trial, which we used before deciding. Our six-year-old learns through mini-games and speaking exercises.
How long does it take for kids to speak English after moving abroad?
We cannot say from our own experience yet because we are still in preparation. In many accounts from other families we keep reading that kids in an English-speaking environment learn very quickly and often start speaking after about three months.
Does a child need to speak English before starting school in Australia?
We take this calmly. Joris will not start school until January 2027 because the Australian school year begins in January. By then we will already have been in the country for a good half year. That time before school gives him room to pick up the language in everyday life.
Should you teach kids Australian slang in advance?
From our point of view, no. Typical Australian abbreviations like "arvo" for afternoon or "brekky" for breakfast, and expressions like "how ya doin mate", are not in any school book and do not need to be practised in advance. Kids pick that up on site on their own.
Status: May 2026. We are still in Germany. Christian flies out on 23 June, Lucy follows with the kids on 26 July. We will report back later how the English side develops after arrival.
Last updated: 6 June 2026
