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Categories > Non-native Speakers > 5 year old not speaking minority language yet
 
 


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Charlotte
  Posted   Reply with quote  #1 
Our son has just turned 5yrs and has had our Spanish nanny speak with him since he was 1yrs old. She is pretty consistent and rarely uses English with him. She speaks at her native speed and he understands what she says -occasionally he might not understand a word, at which point, he will say so. He has started to respond to her in a few Spanish words but nothing more and only when the rest of our family aren’t around! He has always watched tv 50% of the time in Spanish, listens to Spanish stories in the car and reads books/games in Spanish. Neither myself nor his father speak Spanish but our nanny lives with us and spends as
much time with him as us! We’re not sure why he won’t speak or why he does t seem to be able to put a whole sentence together despite his understanding of vocabulary being good?
 
Nuria McNeal
  Posted   Reply with quote  #2 
I just joined this forum and saw your post.

I have sponken to my daughter in Spanish since she was born.  Very few Spanish speakers outside of me.  She understood everything I said, but rarely said things in Spanish to me.

It is laziness.  If the nanny understands English and everyone else understands it, most kids will use the one most people around them use.

When we went on vacation to Spain, my daughter had not trouble speaking in Spanish.  It took a few days, but she did fine.

Now she is in a Bilingual school and she is doing fine.  After the first week I already noticed her speaking more in Spanish.

So either have the Nanny not answer to him until he speaks in Spanish or meet Spanish speaking kids he can play with.

Hope this helps.
 
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