Reply to How important is English speaking skills in a nanny?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My OP is not about the pros and cons of learning a second language.  Our baby is exposed to two languages at home already, later a third (my or my husband's third language) when old enough to attend toddler classes.  But we don't expect to find a nanny who speaks one of our other languages and as I find most nannies are not native English speakers, I am concerned about the nanny speaking their non-fluent English to our child.  The plurality of nannies I've met speak Spanish, which is not among our family's languages, and I think it might be too much to have our baby hear a fourth language...

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Anyone wondering why so many children are speech delayed?

Think about it.[/quote]

We are working in Eastern Europe and have a live-in Russian nanny; she has very, very limited English, and took me seriously when I told her at the start that she should "force" everyone to speak Russian.  Now we ALL speak Russian, thanks to her.  She reads to my toddler in Russian, and interestingly, the toddler (who is NOT speech delayed) understands that we speak to Valentina in Russian and Mommy and Daddy in English: the toddler seems to have equivalent English and Russian vocabularies, and she switches from one language to the other depending on whether she is speaking to the nanny of her parents.  I love this.  We inherited the nanny from another American couple, who had her for 7 years: she taught their twins fluent Russian, and also had them reading and writing in Russian with some old schoolbooks she got from her grandkids' school.  I feel it is such a gift to have this experience, and I don't care AT ALL that she can't really speak English.  The gift of a second language can only truly be given to a very young child (if you desire fluency), and if/when we go home, I am already plotting ways to keep up the kids' Russian.[/quote][/quote]

You've made up your mind, so why are you second-guessing yourself?  There are plenty of nannies who speak English fluently, perhaps as their only language.[/quote]

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