15 questions to ask a bilingual nanny
The questions that separate a caregiver who keeps a language alive from one who lets it quietly fade.
Standard nanny interview lists cover experience, references, first aid and discipline. All necessary, none of them specific to what you are actually doing when you hire for language.
These are the questions that separate a caregiver who will keep your child's second language alive from one who will quietly let it fade. Ask them after the standard ones, not instead.
The language rule
1. "Which language will you speak with my child when I am in the room?"
The single highest-value question on this list. Many bilingual caregivers switch to English when a parent is present, out of politeness. If you do not settle this explicitly, your exposure quietly halves.
2. "What will you do when my child answers you in English?"
You want someone who repeats it in the target language and waits, not someone who switches. Listen for whether they have a technique or just an intention.
3. "Are you comfortable correcting my child's grammar?"
Many caregivers consider it disrespectful to correct an employer's child. You need to give explicit permission, or you will get fluent, ungrammatical output.
4. "What is your first language, and what did you speak at home as a child?"
Better than "are you fluent". You are trying to find out whether this is a native register or a competent second language.
What they will actually do all day
5. "What songs and rhymes do you know for this age?"
This is the real test. Children absorb language through songs, repetition and play, not vocabulary. A caregiver who cannot name three songs will default to English within a month.
6. "Describe an ordinary afternoon with a three-year-old."
Let them talk. You are listening for narration, the running commentary that carries most early language acquisition. Caregivers who narrate produce bilingual children. Caregivers who supervise silently do not.
7. "What would you cook with my child?"
Cooking is where food vocabulary, family memory and culture arrive together. It is also a reliable signal of whether someone will engage or just keep the child safe.
8. "Which holidays matter to you, and would you want to mark them with my child?"
Practical for scheduling, and it tells you what your child will absorb beyond words.
The uncomfortable but necessary ones
9. "Can you tell me about your work authorisation?"
Ask directly, early, and without apology. Awkward once. Much worse discovered later.
10. "May I contact two families you worked with, including your most recent?"
The word "recent" matters. A reference list that skips the last job is the list telling you something.
11. "How do you handle it when a child hits or bites?"
You are listening for a specific method and for whether physical discipline comes up. Norms genuinely differ across cultures, and this is a conversation to have before hiring, not after an incident.
12. "What would make you leave a job?"
Nobody asks this. The answers are unusually honest and tell you exactly which failure mode to avoid.
Logistics people forget
13. "What hourly rate are you looking for, and are you expecting guaranteed hours?"
Most experienced nannies expect to be paid their scheduled hours whether used or not. Settle it now.
14. "Are you comfortable being paid legally, on the books?"
You should be paying legally regardless. Asking signals that you are a professional employer, which is itself a hiring advantage with the best candidates.
15. "What did you not like about your last family?"
The closing question. Everyone has something. A candidate who insists everything was perfect is either not being straight with you or has not thought about it.
One thing to do after the interview
Put the language rule in writing in the offer, in one sentence: which language, in which situations, including when you are home. It costs nothing, and it is the difference between a bilingual household and an expensive English-speaking one.
