Fifteen English-speaking and fifteen French-speaking preschool children were each videotaped during two play sessions, one with a native and one with a non-native peer. Length of verbal utterances toward the non-native listener was significantly lower than toward the native listener, supporting the notion that native speakers adapt the amount of verbal behavior to their listeners. The adapatation was quantitative rather than qualitative, possibly because the non-native listeners were somewhat fluent in the school language, or perhaps because the speech in question was play speech to begin with. (JB)