Native Esperanto speakers come to be in families in which Esperanto (and usually other languages) are spoken. Often one or both parents choose to use Esperanto as the main language in communicating with the children, who thus acquire the language in the way that other children acquire their native languages, so that their first word as an infant may be "Panjo" or "Paĉjo" (the Esperanto equivalents of "Mummy" and "Daddy", pronounced panyo and pachyo respectively). Usually those children become natively bilingual, trilingual, or even more. It also happens that the parents use Esperanto between themselves, but use another language in speaking with the children. Then the children, who wish to understand what the parents are saying between themselves, learn to at least comprehend spoken Esperanto.
Some native Esperanto speakers grow up in an all-Esperanto neighbourhood or go to an Esperanto school, and are thus exposed to Esperanto culture. For those that don't, Esperanto is not the mainstream language in their culture, and as such, it is extremely helpful to meet regularly with other native speakers. For this reason, some parents consider it important to regularly bring their children to Esperanto conventions. The annual Children's Congress of Esperanto (Infana Kongreseto) happens alongside the largest Esperanto convention, the World Congress of Esperanto (Universala Kongreso).
According to Ethnologue, which unexpectedly categorises Esperanto as "a language of France" [1], there are "200-2000 who speak Esperanto as a first language."
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