Homework Help for Multilingual Families: Tips and Apps

Picture this: Your child puts a math worksheet on the kitchen table. "Complete the number walls and describe the pattern." You read the sentence three times. Number walls? Describe the pattern? You had good grades yourself back home, you can do math, you want to help. But this worksheet speaks a language you have only been learning for a few years, in a school jargon that not even all German parents understand.

If this sounds familiar: you are in good company. And no, you are not the problem.

Why This Affects So Many Families

In German elementary school classrooms today, it is completely normal to find children whose families speak Turkish, Arabic, Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, Romanian, or one of many other languages at home. These families are not the exception, they are everyday life. The numbers show this too:

Sources: Statistisches Bundesamt (in German) ("Zahl der Woche" from January 20, 2026), Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (in German) (data from 2021) and INSM-Bildungsmonitor 2024 (in German), produced by the Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft (IW) on behalf of the Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft, based on PISA and SOEP data.

But school runs almost entirely in German: worksheets in German, letters to parents in German, explanations in class in German. That is usually manageable for the child, because children learn the language around them remarkably fast. For parents, it looks different. Someone who comes to Germany as an adult, works, runs the household, and learns German on the side may understand the conversation at the bakery, but not necessarily phrases like "Mark the nouns and form the plural" or "Calculate cleverly using turnaround facts."

One thing about this often gets overlooked: this is not a sign of missing commitment. Not understanding the worksheet says nothing about how much your child's education matters to you. The will is there. What is missing is a bridge between the German worksheet and the language in which parents can explain best.

What Families Improvise Today, and Where It Falls Short

Multilingual families are resourceful. Almost every family has built some kind of system. The three most common look like this:

1. The Translation App

Google Translate or a similar app, point the camera at the worksheet, done. This often works well for individual words. With school assignments, it quickly hits its limits:

• School terms get translated literally. "Zahlenmauer" (number wall) turns into an actual wall, "Rechenkette" (calculation chain) turns into a necklace. The meaning is lost.
• The app translates, but it does not explain. Even once you know what the assignment says, you still do not know how the school teaches this calculation method. This is especially true in math, where a lot has changed. More on that in our article Elementary Math Is Taught Differently Today Than It Used to Be.
• Handwriting and worksheet layout often confuse camera translation.

2. The Older Sibling

The big sister in seventh grade translates and explains. This sometimes works well, but it comes at a cost: the older child has their own homework, their own friends, their own stress. If they permanently take on the role of family interpreter and tutor, that is a real burden. And if they are not in the mood, you get arguing instead of help.

3. Neighbors, Relatives, Other Parents

The German neighbor, the aunt with better German, the mom from the class WhatsApp group. All valuable help, but all with the same problem: they are not available every afternoon at 3 p.m., when the child is sitting in front of the worksheet. Homework does not wait for a weekend visit.

The pattern behind all three approaches: they work occasionally, but not reliably every day. And daily reliability is exactly what children need with homework.

Strategies That Really Work

Good news: there are approaches that work better than daily improvisation. They are strongest in combination.

Talk to the School, Even If It Takes Courage

Many parents do not dare to, because they are embarrassed about their German. But the truth is: teachers are almost always glad to help once they know where the problem is. Concretely, you can:

• Say openly at a parent-teacher conference: "I often do not understand the worksheets. How can I still support my child?"
• Ask for an interpreter for parent-teacher conferences. Many schools and municipalities arrange this, you just have to ask.
• Ask whether the teacher can also provide important information in simple language or as a pictogram letter for parents. Some schools already do this.

One sentence that helps many parents: you do not have to offer the school perfect German. You just have to show that you are engaged. That is usually completely enough for teachers.

Use Homework Support and All-Day Care (Ganztag)

OGS (all-day elementary school program), Hort (after-school care center), homework clubs, school support associations, neighborhood centers: in many places there are care programs where children do their homework with support. That takes the pressure off the kitchen table. Ask the school office or your city's family office what is available where you live. These programs are often free or very cheap, but poorly advertised.

Honest caveat: spots are scarce in many places, and the quality of care varies. It is still worth getting on the waiting list.

Collect the Words from the Assignments

Sometimes an assignment does not fail because of the math, but because of a single word. In "The fruit farmer harvests cherries in crates of 8 each," everything hinges on the small word "each." Instructions like "Match," "Connect," or "Circle" are also vocabulary a child first has to learn. Try out what works for your family:

• A small notebook for assignment words: every new word from an instruction goes in, with an explanation in your family language.
• Clarify key words first: before your child calculates, talk together about what "remainder," "each," or "difference" mean.
• The problem as a picture: a small drawing can make a word problem tangible, even if some words are still missing.

Work with Bilingual Materials

For many languages, there are now bilingual children's books, dictionaries for elementary school students, and parent guides in several languages (city libraries often have their own multilingual section). Some learning apps also support several languages. You will find an overview further below in the section "Apps for German as a Second Language."

And this is important, because it unsettles many families: it is fine to keep speaking your family language at home. Till Woerfel from the Mercator-Institut für Sprachförderung und Deutsch als Zweitsprache (Mercator Institute for Language Support and German as a Second Language) advises parents to offer their children language input in all the family's languages, "for German just as much as for the family language" (interview with Deutsches Schulportal (in German)). A child who understands in Turkish what a word problem is asking can transfer that understanding to German. Conversely, a child who does not understand, in any language, what is going on gets stuck in both languages.

Apps for German as a Second Language

Apps do not replace language support at school, but they can complement it in everyday life. The following three offerings are of interest for elementary school children with German as a second language (DaZ). The information comes from the providers' own websites, as of September 2026.

ANTON: DaZ Courses and Translation Help

ANTON (in German) has its own courses for German as a second language, including a literacy course and an A1 course (in German) with topics like greetings, school and the classroom. There is also a translation helper: according to ANTON, it lets you translate all texts in the app into more than 75 languages and listen to them in your native language. According to the provider, learning is free and ad-free, some additional features cost money.

For whom: children who want to practice vocabulary and simple sentences for everyday school life step by step.

Antolin: Reading and Quiz Questions, Also in Other Languages

Antolin (in German), from Westermann, is a reading portal for grades 1 through 10: your child reads a book or a text and then answers quiz questions about it. According to the publisher (in German), quiz questions are also available in Arabic, English, French, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Swedish, Slovenian, Spanish, Turkish and Ukrainian. Schools or libraries purchase the license, not parents: ask at school or your city library about access. With the login details, your child can then use Antolin at home too.

For whom: children who can already read and want to build reading comprehension and enjoyment of reading.

LeOn: Reading Support for Schools in NRW

LeOn (Leseraum Online) (in German) is a browser-based reading program for grades 2 through 6, with texts at different reading levels and exercises in reading aloud. LeOn is offered to schools in North Rhine-Westphalia, which can use it free of charge. Families access it through the school: if you live in NRW, ask the teacher whether the class uses it.

For whom: children who can read but want to build reading fluency and motivation.

These offerings practice reading and German. For the actual worksheet that is on the kitchen table today, we built Gennady.

The Gennady Way: German Worksheet, Explanation in 21 Languages

We built Gennady exactly for this gap, deliberately not as a translation app but as an explanation app. Here is how it works:

The point that matters most to us: Gennady explains the way to the answer, instead of just writing down the result. It proceeds step by step, the way a patient adult who knows the German school system would. If your child can't get any further, the last hint of an explanation shows the solution, so they don't stay stuck. Your child learns the assignment in German (because that is the terminology needed at school). If your family language is among the 21 languages in which Gennady explains (list further below), your child additionally understands the concept in the language you think and talk in at home.

And you, as a parent, are part of it again: when the explanation is in Ukrainian or Turkish, you can read along, ask questions and talk with your child about the assignment. That is the difference between "unfortunately, I cannot help you" and "let's look at this together."

An app does not replace a teacher, language support or a conversation with the school. It does not replace you either. But it closes the gap where it opens up every day: at the kitchen table at 3 p.m., when nobody is there who can translate and explain.

Which Languages Gennady Explains In

So you know what to expect in advance: the app interface is available in 32 languages, with explanations and answer checking in 21 of them. Those are German, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish, Turkish, Russian, Romanian, Hungarian, Greek, Czech, Swedish, Bulgarian, Croatian, Slovak, Finnish, Danish and Ukrainian. Which language Gennady explains in depends on the language set in the app.

If you speak Arabic, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Hindi, Korean or Norwegian at home, you can use the app interface in your language, but the explanations come in German. If your family language is not in the app at all, for example Persian or Kurdish, the explanations also come in German, unless you set one of the other 21 languages that your child understands well. Gennady can help in German too: it reads aloud, highlighting word by word, explains step by step, and your child can answer by voice.

The Most Important Points to Remember

If you remember three things from this article, make it these:

1. You are not the problem. The school system is built to be monolingual, your family is multilingual. That is a structural issue, not a question of your commitment.
2. Reliability beats improvisation. Translation apps, siblings and neighbors help occasionally. For everyday life, you need solutions that are there every day: talk to the school, use available care, use the right tools.
3. Your family language is a strength. A child who understands concepts in two languages has an advantage, not a disadvantage.

We continuously collect more articles, strategies and experiences on this topic in our guide for multilingual families. Check it out if you want to go deeper.