Practical

Questions to ask your grandparents, in their own language

Ask in the language they think in. How to get family questions into simple spoken Punjabi, Urdu, Polish or another language, and keep the words they use.

By Gary Dhanda · 9 November 2026 · 3-minute read

Ask in the language they think in. Pick your questions in English, ask your own AI assistant to put them into simple spoken language, the way family talks at home, and have a fluent relative check the wording before the day.

Why their language matters

Names of places, dishes and relatives often have no English version. Many people tell a story differently in the language they grew up speaking. Asking in that language tells them you want the real version.

Getting the questions into their language

  1. Pick five to ten questions from the Christmas memory kit.
  2. Choose their language in the kit’s “Ask in” box. It gives you a prompt to paste into ChatGPT, Claude or another assistant, asking for simple spoken wording with the English in brackets so you can follow.
  3. Ask a fluent relative to check the wording. Machine translation can sound stiff or get a dialect wrong.
  4. Print the questions in large type.

If you do not speak it well yourself

Ask a parent, aunt or cousin to ask the questions while you record. Afterwards, write down what you understood, ask them to fill the gaps, and keep the original words for people, places and food even in the English write-up.

Write the memory page in either language

The kit’s second prompt writes the memory page in whichever language you choose. Some families keep two copies: one in the language it was told in, one in English for the youngest.

Languages on this site

The kit’s prompts cover English and the fourteen languages this site is published in:

  • Français
  • Deutsch
  • Español
  • Italiano
  • Português
  • Nederlands
  • Polski
  • Română
  • हिन्दी
  • ਪੰਜਾਬੀ
  • اردو
  • বাংলা
  • العربية
  • 中文

The kit itself is in English; the translation is done by your own assistant.

Questions people ask

Can AI translate questions for my grandparents?

It can give you a good first draft. Ask for simple spoken language and the English alongside, then have a fluent relative check it before you use it.

What questions should I ask my grandparents?

Start with easy, specific ones: what the end of the year looked like when they were ten, their first job, the dish nobody makes like they did. The Christmas memory kit has 30.

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