👨‍👩‍👧 My kids understand our language but answer in English

My kids understand almost everything we say at home. But when they answer, it comes out in English. Sometimes they use a Telugu word with an English ending, because they don't know the proper one. School is in English, friends are in English, even the games and shows. So of course it wins. Nobody decided it. It just happened, a little more every year, like a tap dripping. They have things we never had, good schools, safe streets and activities. I'm not complaining about that. It's the small things slipping away. The jokes that only work if you grew up hearing them. My father used to say one line when he was annoyed and I laughed every time. When I say it to my son, he looks at me politely and waits for it to end. My wife started a rule. At dinner we speak only our home language, no English allowed. It helps a little. The kids slip back out of habit, not out of defiance, and they laugh. We also tell them stories our parents told us, about the old city and the festivals. They listen, but I can see it competes with a much louder daily world. A few families I know put their kids in weekend language classes to slow the drift. I'm seriously thinking about doing the same, before it's too late. What worries me more than the words is the culture attached to them. How do you let them fit in here and still keep enough of home?

Tried the weekend language classes route for both my kids two years back, helped with vocabulary somewhat but the accent and natural rhythm of speaking still lean heavily English no matter how many classes they attend.

We do bedtime stories in Telugu instead of a strict dinner rule, felt less like a chore and more like something the kids looked forward to each night. Still watched them slip back into English within minutes once the story ended, so I do not think there is any real shortcut around this. Your dinner table rule sounds like a solid start though, consistency probably matters more than the exact method chosen.