Will this work if nanny does not speak the minority language

[einspectorfidget]

My husband and I speak Chinese Mandarin and are living in the US (obviously, community language is English). We are both bilingual and wish to raise our child English/Mandarin bilingual as well.

We’ve been exclusively talking to baby (2 months old boy) in Mandarin and plan on continuing to do so, since baby will be getting English everywhere else. However, the problem is that we both work and my maternity leave is ending soon, so we are looking for a nanny for starting when baby is 3 months old. We’re trying to find a bilingual/Mandarin speaking nanny so that she can also exclusively speak Mandarin to baby, but it’s difficult to find. If we can only find an English speaking nanny, will it still be possible to raise our child bilingual? The nanny will be spending so much of baby’s waking time with him, speaking English, and he’s still so young. We’re starting to feel a bit desperate on the nanny search situation, the bilingual requirement considerably narrows down the pool.

Edit: I did a search last night if there were similar posts but didn’t really find any. But of course now that I posted this, I see that there’s an extremely similar post 2 hours ago I’ll leave my post up anyway though in case there’s any sort of different suggestions.

 

[aldredian]

@einspectorfidget It will be better if you can find a Mandarin speaking nanny but since you guys are heritage language at home, don't discount the time you're home and weekends where you'll only be speaking Mandarin to your child.

If I look back at my friends, they sent their kids to daycare which is all English (well, they did have some teachers who spoke Cantonese but they didn't speak it to their child all the time) and their kids are still bilingual in both English and Cantonese.

Maybe just find a nanny for now and then keep looking for the Mandarin speaking one.

Also, have you asked around the Chinese expat communities? A lot of times it's through WOM. Further, you could even search directly from China and fly them over if you have to.

My friend asked around back in Taiwan and found a masters student with a degree in early childhood education and brought her over on a holiday visa (we live in Australia). She worked as an au pair at her house for a year, looking after their daughter speaking only Mandarin.

 

[einspectorfidget]

@aldredian Hearing that it worked out for your friend gives me hope!
We’ll try asking around a bit more, but so far, the people we know either don’t have kids so would have no idea, or they only know people who live about an hour or two hours drive away, and not likely will want to commute to our home. And we’re not looking for a live-in nanny for now so an au pair would be out of consideration. Thanks for the suggestions!

 

[godmadegorillas]

@einspectorfidget Yes they will still learn the minority language. My son attends a daycare in a minority language, my husband and I each speak to him in our respective minority languages, and my husband and I speak English to each other, and somehow my son is able to speak all 3 minority languages almost equally well. Try not to overthink it and provide as much input as you can in your minority language while you are with your child through media, books, community, etc.

 

[einspectorfidget]

@godmadegorillas Your son is amazing. I guess by the time he becomes exposed to the community language, he’ll be quadruple-lingual!!

 

[hollyroller7]

@einspectorfidget In my opinion, the baby definitely will learn Mandarin even with an English speaking nanny. This is especially true because you both speak it exclusively around the baby. The baby will still be spending tons of time with you and your husband and that will sooo much of the language they will hear.

And communicating with the parents/primary caregiver is absolutely essential for a baby, the baby will absolutely learn it. I wouldn’t worry if it were me, personally. I think there are many many families that speak one language at home and the child is exposed to another through daycare, and the child still learns both. I guess I don’t have a source for my opinions here, but this is just how I feel I suppose.

Also, to supplement, you could have an English only-speaking nanny play music in Mandarin while she’s with him. You even could make it be part of the contract, that at least 30 mins (or whatever) of Mandarin music must be listened to each day, etc. That would give the baby some additional input and the nanny can still dance/fake sing along (or even actually learn the lyrics!) and that would give some additional time per week of the baby hearing Mandarin.

 

[einspectorfidget]

@hollyroller7 That’s a really good idea about asking the nanny to incorporate Mandarin stuff as much as possible! Thanks for the idea!

 

[noname1]

@einspectorfidget Hi, my kid is 2 and half. Parent 1 speaks Mandarin, parent two speaks Hakka. We talk to each other in English and mandarin (mandarin isn't my mother tongue) and we've been sending our kid since 11 months old to English nursery (they even do french on Fridays lol).

So far, her favourite thing is to translate and she can speak and understand in all three. She knows not to talk to us in English and uses respective languages or with me a little bit of a mandarin Hakka blend which I'll forgive her for.

I think the nanny in English might be ok but where are you? In London UK there are loads of A Yi, are you looking on English websites or searching in Chinese on WeChat etc? Some of the ones in London will even help to clean and cook lol.

EDIT: Oh and my tip is just make sure when you're home, all TV, media, is in mandarin, and we buy loads of books or get them sent over etc from china and always read bedtime stories in Chinese. I also use Chinese language learning app for her to learn some Chinese hanzi in the morning with milk. It really does help to immerse.

 

[einspectorfidget]

@noname1 This is so reassuring to hear how well it worked out for so many of you! We’re in the US, in a city that does have a significant Chinese population, but mostly quite a far commute from where we live, and the people we’ve been asking around generally find that the commute time would not work for them, especially since there are plenty of opportunities over where the bigger population is.

We’ll start to look for more Mandarin books/media to immerse our baby in. Thanks for the ideas!

 

[noname1]

@einspectorfidget Ah I see. Location could be an issue. It's quite easy to get around London to some extent. But i have never had a nanny... I have quite flexible working hours which helps though. I'd recommend too if anyone mentions something like bebefin or cocomelon, go to Jojo baby or baby bus, if it's like pepper pig or bluey, think only in mandarin!

Spotify has a ton of Chinese nursery rhymes and kids songs, native and translations so go for that too around the house. Additionally, if you want to listen to your own music, just do the mandarin stuff in front of them. E.g. I listen to my 80s 90s canto and Mando pop canto is still ok imo too since it kinda just falls back to my culture and it is a another Chinese language

 

[einspectorfidget]

@noname1 Thank you!! That’s really helpful. My Spotify has a lot of 90s mando pop too haha. Will definitely be playing some of those.

 

[inyourimage]

@einspectorfidget I am not sure if your future nanny will be a native English speaker, but if he or she is, then I hope I am not being to presumptuous to mention that our books might be helpful because they come with free audio which the nanny could play, and they are written to show both Mandarin and English in a "reversible" way, meaning that the relationship between the words in both languages can be noticed in a way that other bilingual books do not offer. This short video explains it better.

Here is a bit more info I wrote in Mandarin:

也许你会想，“她为什么写小孩子的中英文书啊？”其实， 我有许多原因， 最重要的是我不想丢掉我的中文。 我还是学生学中文的时候，很遗憾没有很多现代和有意思的阅读材料，所以我决定用我的知识, 创作我自己的好玩儿的资料。我觉得很多的父母想教他们的孩子讲英文或者中文，可是他们发现很多的双语书有许多的缺点。比如， 有些书有英文和汉字， 但是没有拼音。 有些书有汉字和拼音却没有英文。 而且，大多数的双语故事把一种语言放在页面的右边而把地二种语言放在页面的左边， 让看书的人很容易只看一种语言而忽略另外一种语言。 请大家欣赏我的视频了解我如何处理这个问题！ 谢谢你！

 

[einspectorfidget]

@inyourimage Thanks for sharing this! It looks really good. However, we’re hoping to get material with traditional Chinese characters if possible - hopefully we’re able to find some here. But I’ll keep your books in mind!

 

[inyourimage]

@einspectorfidget Ah yes, that makes sense! Thanks for the compliment!

 

[lemandas]

@einspectorfidget Never used the service myself (kid born at the height of COVID), but my friends have had success using https://myasiannanny.com/ for Mandarin speaking yuesao and nannies.