major differences between English in Chinese
There are some basic major differences between English in Chinese .Be aware of these difference will enable the western mandarin Chinese student both to learn Chinese easier and in addition to take his language abilities some steps further.
This article sums up some major differences between English and Chinese
.English relies on structures to express ideas while Chinese does not.1
The meaning of this is that as long as the sentence structure is grammatically correct,it can be used to express ideas no matter how long and complicated the sentence is.it is very common in English to use very long and complicated sentences for expression
In construct Chinese “wants” the meaning to be understood easily and clearly and therefor doesn’t rely on long structures for expression but instead divides the long sentence into several shorter ones .Therefore it is very common to see long sentences in English using a lot of modifiers ,and in contrast many short sentences in Chinese connecting with comma
The message for the mandarin student is this: when dealing with the Chinese language “Get the meaning, forget the words”
2.English very commonly uses pronouns like: “we”, “you”, “she”,”they”,”that”,”which” in order to make the long sentences clearer and without repeats.Due to the short sentences in Chinese there is no such need to use pronouns and therefore nouns are
Much more in use in Chinese than pronouns
.English uses the passive voice while Chinese uses the active voice.3
chinese hardly uses the passive voice and generally use the active voice for expression.for example ,”it is widely believed that…”
Is expressed in Chinese as :”people generally believe that…”.
.4.there is a different in Verb/Tense aspect.English very commonly uses auxiliaries and by verb inflections like is/are/were
Eat/eats/ate/eaten, etc.Chinese, on the other hand, is an uninflected language and conveys meaning through word order, adverbials or shared understanding of the context. Chinese doesn’t use different tenses and verb forms to express the concept of time.except for cases when the emphasize of the time is necessary ,the time is often understood by the context
For the mandarin student this is a big advantage because it simplifies the Chinese grammar
5.A difference in the vocabulary aspect.the Chinese language is extremely rich and different nuances of the same word in English requires a different word in Chinese.most of the dictionaries don’t make the slight differences between similar Chinese words clear and therefor cannot be completely trusted
For the mandarin student it means don’t rely only on the dictionary to use Chinese
The student can overcome this difficulty by reading,reading and more reading Chinese,listening to Chinese and by taking private lessons with a native Chinese teacher
6.English uses abstract vocabulary for expression much more than Chinese.Chinese often uses definite concrete objects to express abstract ones.this characteristic is a result of the Chinese philosophy which is based on the nature
The message for the mandarin student : put an emphasize on mastering as many Chinese idioms as you can because the Chinese idioms make use of concrete objects to express abstract ideas and in addition make use of allegories while using Chinese.this will make you language abilities some steps higher
.Chinese has no singular and plural.7
8.Chinese does not distinguish between countable and non-countable nouns; one money, one homework, one child
Chinese has no gender forms, other than words for ‘he, she, it’ – which have the same pronunciation
This makes the Chinese grammar easier to learn for the western mandarin student
.
10.Chinese has no Nominative or Accusative cases. ‘I’ and ‘me’ are the same, as are ‘he’ and ‘him’, ‘she’ and ‘her’
11.Chinese has no Genitive case in either verbs or nouns: One word (de) is used to indicate possession. ‘I de’ is ‘my’ or ‘mine’. Etc
12.the verb “to be” is widely in use in English but not in Chinese.for example: “we will be together” is expressed in Chinese as: ‘we together”
13.it is very common in Chinese that a noun is also a verb and/or adjective.this hardly exists in English
.14.Chinese has no negative questions. Never say to a Chinese friend ‘You aren’t going to the party, are you?’ If he’s not going, he will answer, “Yes
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