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UDC 28:347.167.1
LANGUAGE CONSTRUCTION AND GRAMMAR DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ENGLISH AND
CHINESE
Akmuratova Zh.N
M.Auezov South Kazakhstan State University, Shymkent, Kazakhstan
[email protected]
Abstract
The size of both the United States and China guarantees that many people will communicate in English and
Chinese. But those two common languages do not guarantee perfect communication in writing practice for several reasons.
This paper explores the factors resulting in non understandable communication of English and Chinese as written language,
and some strategies applied by English teachers when training students’ English writing. Word-formation is the study of
words, dealing with the construction or formation rules of words in a certain language. This paper studies and analyses
various ways of Chinese and English word-formation so that similarities and differences are found between the two
languages. Through comparison, Chinese or English learners could have a better way of acquiring either or both of the two
languages concerned. In the past, many Chinese words were borrowed into the English language, but in the modern age,
more and more English words are coming into the Chinese language. What all this tells us is that science and technology
are leading human society forwards, and that the world is making progress in this way or that. Language (vocabulary in this
connection) is in constant change so that it keeps pace with the development of human society.
Keywords: differences, English, Chinese, written language, strategies, Mandarin Chinese, construction.
No one knows exactly how many languages are used in today’s world. According to one estimate, there
are about 3,000 to 4,000 spoken languages. Each differs in sound, grammar, and sentence construction as well
as writing style. English and Chinese, which are the most commonly used languages in the world have some
factors that influence a good understanding in oral and written communication both in and between these two
languages. Especially in business writing, there are some differences in writing style that attract our attention.
Chinese has much less grammar than English and, being ideograph-based, cannot alter the ‘spelling’ of a word
to express a change in meaning as we do in English. Chinese has no prefixes or suffixes as in English, and
instead uses auxiliary words to express moods, cases, tenses and voices. The grammar of Standard Chinese
shares many features with other varieties of Chinese. The language almost entirely lacks inflection, so that
words typically have only one grammatical form. Categories such as number (singular or plural) and verb tense
are frequently not expressed by any grammatical means, although there are several particles that serve to
express verbal aspect, and to some extent mood. [1]
The basic word order is subject–verb–object (SVO). Otherwise, Chinese is chiefly a head-last language,
meaning that modifiers precede the words they modify – in a noun phrase, for example, the head noun comes
last, and all modifiers, including relative clauses, come in front of it. (This phenomenon is more typically found
in SOV languages like Turkish and Japanese.)
Chinese frequently uses serial verb constructions, which involve two or more verbs or verb phrases in sequence.
Chinese prepositions behave similarly to serialized verbs in some respects (several of the common prepositions
can also be used as full verbs), and they are often referred to as co verbs. There are also location markers, placed
after a noun, and hence often called postpositions; these are often used in combination with a co verb. Predicate
adjectives are normally used without a copular verb ("to be"), and can thus be regarded as a type of verb.
As in many east Asian languages, classifiers or measure words are required when using numerals (and
sometimes other words such as demonstratives) with nouns. There are many different classifiers in the language,
and each countable noun generally has a particular classifier associated with it. Informally, however, it is often
acceptable to use the general classifier 个 [個] ge in place of other specific classifiers.
Examples given in this article use simplified Chinese characters (with the traditional characters following in
brackets if they differ) and standard pinyin Romanization.
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. [2]
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 there for 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”
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…” 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 .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 there for cannot be completely trusted. 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. 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 rule sounds a little bit complicated when you first see it, but it’s actually quite straightforward. It simply
means that modifiers come before the thing they modify. The Chinese language, right through from the written
classical language to the modern spoken vernacular, has always had this rule.
Let’s look at some simple examples to demonstrate this rule.
他不喜欢 贵的 东西。
Tā bù xǐhuan guì de dōngxi.
He doesn't like expensive things.
我哥哥 慢慢地 开车。
Wǒ gēgē mànmande kāichē.
My brother drives slowly .
她能喝 很多 啤酒。
Tā néng hē hěnduō píjiǔ.
She can drink a lot of beer.
As you can see in each of the Chinese sentences, the modifier (colored red) comes before the thing it modifies.
贵的 (expensive) comes before 东西 (things), 慢慢地 (slowly) comes before 开车 (drive) and 很多 (a lot of)
comes before 啤酒 (beer). Notice how the position of the modifier varies in the English sentences.
Knowing about this ‘modifiers first’ rule in Chinese grammar can be very helpful in the early stages of your
Chinese studies. It lets you follow the structure of sentences more quickly because you can identify modifiers
(adjectives and adverbs) and the things they’re modifying (nouns and verbs) more easily.
It also lets you form sentences with more confidence because you know that adjectives should be placed before
the nouns they modify, and adverbs should be placed before the verbs they modify.[4]
Words do not change. Unlike in European languages, words in Chinese do not change. They have a fixed form
that is the same no matter what they’re used for or where the appear in a sentence. In Chinese, you don’t
conjugate verbs and you don’t make adjectives agree. According to Chinese grammar rules, a word is a word.
Have a look at these examples that illustrate this point:
她去工作。
Tā qù gōngzuò.
She goes to work.
我去工作。
Wǒ qù gōngzuò.
I go to work.
他们去工作。
Tāmen qù gōngzuò.
They go to work.
我们去工作。
Wǒmen qù gōngzuò.
We go to work.
These simple sentences show that verbs do not change in Chinese, whereas they do in English. The verb 去 (qù)
is the same in every sentence and doesn’t change. These sentences would be even more varied in a language like
French, but in Chinese the verb is the same every time.
It’s not just verbs that never change according to Chinese grammar rules. Adjectives are also fixed in their form
and are the same no matter what noun they modify. Let’s see some examples:
这是一辆 黑色的 车。
Zhè shì yī liàng hēisède jū.
This is a black car.
我看到了一些 黑色的 猫。
Wǒ kàn dàole yīxiē hēisède māo.
I saw some black cats.
这是一件 黑色的 衬衫。
Zhè shì yī jiàn hēisède chènshān.
This is a black shirt.
The adjective in these sentences, 黑色的 (hēisède) , is the same for each of the items. There is no gender or
grammatical number in Chinese grammar rules.
Another big difference between European languages and Chinese is aspect and tense. European languages
usually indicate both of these things in a sentence, whereas Chinese tends to only indicates aspect.[5]
Again, you might not be aware of what these terms mean. Tense is about when an action took place relative to
now, when we’re speaking. Aspect is about the completeness of an action relative to when it took place. Have a
look at these two sentences in English to see the difference:
I will set off to Beijing.
I will have set off to Beijing.
Both of these sentences are in the future tense. But the aspect is different, because the completeness of the
action (setting off to Beijing) is different in the time frame of each sentence. The speaker hasn’t yet set off to
Beijing in either sentence. In the time frame they’re speaking about in the second sentence, though, they will
have. So the aspect is different (the action is complete in that time frame).
How Chinese marks for aspect is difficult and quite complex. It revolves around a few particles, most
importantly 了 (le), but we won’t go into details of that here. The lesson here is to bear in mind that Chinese
doesn’t mark for tense, but it does mark for aspect. This will take some getting used to, but you will get there
eventually!
Through a detailed comparison of word-formation between the two languages, we can see that similarity exists
between the two although they belong to different writing systems, one is graphic and the other alphabetic; one
is inflectional (English) while the other is not. Both languages have compounds, affixations, conversions, blends,
abbreviations and loans. So in the long run, the mutual influences will continue as long as Chinese and English
people communicate with each other. The trend is that there will be moreand more loans and derivations in the
two languages.
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