Anonymous wrote:Has anyone hired a bilingual nanny so that their children can learn a second language? If so, has it worked? Were language skills delayed at all by trying to learn two languages? We are considering this now and would like to know the pros and cons to this approach. Thanks in advance for any information you can share!

Could you please provide some details?

1. How old will your child be when you hire the nanny?

2. How many hours a week will she work with your child? How long do you hope to employ her? Can you afford a well-educated nanny, rather than the cheaper broken-English nanny?

3. Who else will speak with your child in the second language (if anyone)?

Everyone is assuming the second language will be Spanish. Is that correct?

You understand that English will obviously be delayed, but some aren't concerned about that. Heck, lots of children are now language delayed even when there's only English. Some of these delayed children actually learned sign language first, so English has become their second language. I haven't seen any studies looking at that. I've seen a number of children who adamantly resist speaking if they can successfully communicate in sign language. People should think about possible consequences before jumping into this.

Good that OP is trying to think this through. I'd recommend speaking with adults who learned two or three languages in early childhood, and ask lots of questions and seek advice from them, rather than from adults who never had the experience.

16:09 here. What I mean is that the nanny will need a lot of support from the parent. Playgroups in the target language, later preschool in the target language. Seeing and hearing other kids speak the language is huge. I have read about nannies who have gotten the kids not just understanding but also speaking the language but usually you see kids with great receptive language and low speaking because they are able to get away with speaking in English to the nanny.

It is best if you try to ge t the nanny to pretend they do t understand English, but that is something you need to do from the beginning, not spring it on a 2 or 3 yr old.

I haven't seen a nanny do it all on their own but it is of course possible. Pick someone who you would choose anyway even if they didn't speak another language.

My kids are bilingual and biliterate and it has been hard work but totally worth it. They were never language delayed and in fact had large vocabularies in both languages early on. We used immersion preschool and now immersion elementary school too.

We make them read and watch TV in Spanish sometimes (in the past, all the time br ause they needed it).

English is definitely stronger but we live in the US so that is normal.

I am an English speaking nanny to a 2,5yo in Germany. I've been with them for just over a year. I speak exclusively English to her, the parents do German. She understands me perfectly though replies to me in German, and is now beginning to say things in English to me.

In her daycare are two French kids who used to live in England for two years where they had an English speaking nanny. As soon as they arrived in Germany they put the kids in an English daycare (8am to 1am) to retain English and hired a German speaking nanny for the afternoons. Now a year later (they're 3,5 and 5,5) they speak three languages absolutely fluently, and still default to their native French when playing together.

My kid goes to a mostly international daycare with stories like the above, and there's never any trouble. Provided that the child has a dedicated person speaking a foreign language (aka the nanny ALWAYS speaks Spanish to them, so the child is clear that this is a Spanish speaking environment vs. an English speaking environment) you should be fine. The first few weeks would be a bit tough, but kids have a remarkable ability to pick up languages.

I really know a ton about raising bilingual children and always think it's worth a shot to try it, so feel free to leave your email and we can talk more in depth about this.

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone hired a bilingual nanny so that their children can learn a second language? If so, has it worked? Were language skills delayed at all by trying to learn two languages? We are considering this now and would like to know the pros and cons to this approach. Thanks in advance for any information you can share!

Children learn languages easily. There are no speech delays with bilingual children, however, the vocabulary in EACH language will likely be smaller compared to monolingual children (total vocabulary in all languages will be equal or more) for a few years, and then it evens out.

This assumes the other-language caregiver has educated, grammatically proper language and not a semiliterate mixture of both.

Just note that there is no such thing as perfectly bilingual child. All language is situational and it is not possible to experience each situation in two languages.

Anonymous wrote:Children who speak or understand more than one language are known to be smarter than kids who don't.

Sure, but only if they can keep it as two separate languages, rather than Spanglish. You need to know how to do it properly, and so many out there simply don't. It's often a mess in reality.

Children who speak or understand more than one language are known to be smarter than kids who don't.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. Fluent completely in English and French. Dd4 started speaking at ten months and is fluent in both. Dd 2.5 doesn't speak but is receptive in both languages.

I'd be concerned that your 2.5 year old doesn't speak

Lol, we are, but that part isn't at all relevant to the question posted here so I didn't bother going into it.

Yes in theory. Our now 4 yr old twins have excellent understanding of spoken spanish but they don't speak it much unless they are surrounded by spanish speakers. I don't think it has hurt them at all to have that be the language primarily spoken to them by their nanny, and I think it's a positive overall, but it didn't create fluency.

Her broken English did become a problem. We replaced her with someone with true fluency in both languages but that nanny defaults to English so we still haven't achieved what we hoped.

I will be looking for a spanish language immersion program in elementary school. I expect they will have a head start of a couple of weeks, and maybe a bit of an ear for more accurate pronounciation but that's probably about it.

In retrospect the language thing was less of a positive than I had hoped.

(And just for the relentless barrage that will come - both nannies were/are citizens, both were paid well and had very competitive benefit packages.)

Anonymous wrote:Children who learn two or more languages before 5 are more likely to develop an ear for languages, and even if they don't retain the language through the school years, it's easier to pick it up again or learn another language later. The issue is that nanny needs to be able to communicate with the child, parents and other people (like librarians, teachers). There's also a huge difference in skill level between a native speaker and someone who knows the language (may or may not be a native speaker, but is fluent) who knows how to teach a child a second language.

Can you please post a link for the age five research? Thanks.

Anonymous wrote:Yes. Fluent completely in English and French. Dd4 started speaking at ten months and is fluent in both. Dd 2.5 doesn't speak but is receptive in both languages.

I'd be concerned that your 2.5 year old doesn't speak

Children who learn two or more languages before 5 are more likely to develop an ear for languages, and even if they don't retain the language through the school years, it's easier to pick it up again or learn another language later. The issue is that nanny needs to be able to communicate with the child, parents and other people (like librarians, teachers). There's also a huge difference in skill level between a native speaker and someone who knows the language (may or may not be a native speaker, but is fluent) who knows how to teach a child a second language.

Yes. Fluent completely in English and French. Dd4 started speaking at ten months and is fluent in both. Dd 2.5 doesn't speak but is receptive in both languages.

The answer depends on so many details, OP, but expect people here to say it's a fabulous thing. They need to justify the typical broken-English bargain nanny.

Has anyone hired a bilingual nanny so that their children can learn a second language? If so, has it worked? Were language skills delayed at all by trying to learn two languages? We are considering this now and would like to know the pros and cons to this approach. Thanks in advance for any information you can share!