Desirée Obra and her grandmother often misunderstand each other because they don't speak the same language.
The confusion ranges from who's paying for groceries when they go shopping to what they're having for dinner.
"Anytime we have a misunderstanding, I have to call my dad to help translate," she said.
Desirée said she regrets never properly learning Tagalog, which is one of the major languages spoken in the Philippines.
"My dad never taught me how to speak Tagalog," the 38-year-old told the ABC.
"He says it's because he wanted me to blend in with the rest of my schoolmates in North Carolina."
"I'm sure [my father] regrets never teaching us now."
Desirée said not learning Tagalog has affected her relationship with her grandmother, but she is now gradually picking up new words while staying with her.
She also learnt basic Spanish — her mother's mother tongue — after listening to lots of Latin music and enrolling in some language courses.
Desirée's regret of not learning her parents' language from a young age is shared by many first and second-generation migrants across the world, including in Australia.
'I wanted to be Australian'
Amina, a Lebanese-Australian woman, says she can speak Arabic but never learned how to read and write.
The 52-year-oldsaid she was unwilling to learn the language when she was younger because she wanted to fit in.
"I wanted to be Australian like other Aussie children even though I loved our [Lebanese] food," she said.
Amina said she also wanted to rebel against her mother who was forcing her to learn the language.
"I would get smacked by my mother for not being able to pronounce Arabic words properly or if [I was] caught speaking in English," she said.
"I was only allowed to speak English at school [not at home]."
Amina, who is using a pseudonym to protect her identity, now regrets not learning the language and believes it could have prevented her from being "scammed" out of her life savings.
She said during a holiday in Lebanon, she fell in love with a man who spoke very little English and ended up signing some documents in Arabic.
Amina only later found out she had unknowingly agreed to transfer all of her money to him.
"I sold my property, my business, my car, and all my worldly possessions to be with this man who convinced me it was true love," she said.
"I lost everything! If I was able to read Arabic that would never have happened."
She wants her cautionary tale to be a lesson for the younger generation to learn their mother tongue from a young age.
Loss of language part of a 'wider loss'
Jakelin Troy, director of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research at the University of Sydney, where she's also a linguistics professor, said learning a language was important to understanding a culture.
Professor Troy, a Ngarigu woman, hasbeen helping people "get their Indigenous languages back".
She said learning the languages gave people "a window" into how their ancestors saw the world around them and their way of thinking.
"This is the great importance of Aboriginal languages," she said.
But despite a "renewal" of Indigenous languages, Professor Troy said there may be some knowledge of the culture that may never be retrieved.
Dunghutti woman Deborah Hoger said there were more than 250 Indigenous languages and dialects being spoken across First Nation countries at the time of colonisation.
"Sadly, today there are only around 60 known languages still in use," she said.
After noticing a gap in the Australian education system seven years ago, the mother-of-two created an online hub for educators to access resources on Indigenous culture, perspectives, and languages.
She too has seena recent "revitalisation" of Indigenous languages.
"With this [revitalisation], stronger connections to place, country, and to culture, [are] being established and reaffirmed across the generations," she said.
'Never too late to learn anything'
Alice Lau from Brisbane believes "it's never too late to learn anything".
The 23-year-old Malaysian woman can already speak Cantonese, Malay and Hokkien with her parents.
But her fiancee, an Indian Australian, speaks Hindi with his family.
"When I first met his parents, his dad would joke around and play pranks with me," Alice told the ABC.
"Even with the language barrier, we were still able to communicate through our emotions, drawings and Google Translate."
Alice is visiting herfiancee's parents in India in October andwants to surprise them with the news that she's been learning to speak Hindi.
But it's come with challenges.
"I do think it is easier to pick up a language when you're younger," Alice said.
"Growing up, I learned Cantonese and Hokkien by listening [to] my parents speak to each other.
"But now, I can't pick up Hindi just by listening to my partner speak to his parents."
Which is why Alice has set herself a challenge of filming herselfspeaking Hindi every day and posting it on TikTok.
"It will be a good way to hold myself accountable and help me get over my fear of making mistakes when speaking in Hindi."
Is it easier to learn as a child?
While many believe children are linguistic sponges, Professor Troy says that isn't always the case.
She said learning languages is like linguistics "cross-training".
"Adults are better at learning because they've learned how to learn," she said.
"The difference is that children won't have the inhibitions that adults do.
"They are very prepared to make mistakes and have a laugh at each other."
Professor Troy said children who grow up multilingual are also generally much more receptive to new languages.
"It's good to introduce children very early [on] to other languages because as adults they tend to be less embarrassed about acquiring another language or sounding like they don't know what they're saying."
