Too Much English, Perhaps?

Recently, Bethany and I have been spending some of our Saturday afternoons at the city library, just to study and be in a nice study environment. In recent weeks, my Database Class professor has been coming too, to bring her 6-year old daughter to see me in order to practice English. This has been alright - it was something that I agreed to do. It gives Bethany about an hour of time to chat with my professor, which is great language practice for her. And my professor's daughter is totally adorable and smart.

This last Saturday, it turns out my professor was also babysitting a 6-year classmate of her daughter, a boy who has very little interest in learning English but has tons of interest in cars. So, this boy came along too for the English lesson. After about an hour of working through English together - me and these two 6-year olds - we called it a day.

The boy ran to the magazine racks to get magazines about cars, and then he came back to talk to me nonstop about this or that car... all in Chinese. I couldn't understand a lot of what he said.

My professor said to him (in Chinese), "Shao Ge, you have to speak slower to uncle when you are talking to him. Uncle doesn't understand all of the Chinese that you are speaking."

The boy looked at me curiously, and then looked back at my professor. "Is that because he spent too much time learning English?"

Yes, Shao Ge, you nailed it. That's exactly it.