Direct translation

I'm trying to get Coco to speak more Mandarin becos the last I heard from the Chinese-cum-form teacher, she uses 'body language' to communicate with her Chinese teacher. It's like a slap in the face for me.

It's interesting the way she looks at Chinese. I'm constantly amused and amazed by the way she perceives it. She often does direct translation from English to Chinese eg. we were playing pick-up-sticks and she exclaimed,"I saw this one '动上'!" with '动上' meaning 'move up' literally. Another instance was when she tried to tell me "Only a few children can (do the dance steps)". She said,"而已很少 (Only a few) ..." I find it hilarious. Altho '而已' also means 'only', but it usually comes at the end of a statement. The correct one to use was '只有', which means 'only' but it comes at the start of a statement.