Week 10: Chinese Syntax

Like with South Asian languages, many dialects are spoken in China; however, unlike South Asian languages, I have yet to encounter a Chinese language that uses a different written language. Although there is distinction between traditional written Chinese and simplified written Chinese, a majority of characters are the same or similar enough to be able to be recognized by all Chinese people. As someone who has had no education in traditional Chinese, I am still able to read characters in traditional Chinese and get a gist of the idea. The important thing is that, although the characters may look different, the grammar the exact same-- the characters between traditional and simplified Chinese are basically interchangeable.

Although it may seem easier to talk about Chinese as a whole because of the nearly uniform written language, the grammar will take a while to explain because there are hardly any similarities between it and English grammar. So here goes:

• Parts of speech are rarely formally distinguished, and the same character may be used as different parts of speech. As a result, it may be hard for ELLs to distinguish between small changes in English words that change the part of speech (i.e. different vs. difference-- in Chinese both are the same word)

• Verb tenses in Chinese are changed by using adverbials around the verb, context, or word order, not the word itself. ELLs often have a lot of trouble with English verbs in the beginning, especially because of the abnormal changes to verbs with tense change.

• Chinese expresses the concept of time differently than we do in English*-- without changing the verb. It ends up being difficult to match time expressions and verb tenses in English (i.e. I have seen her two days ago)

• Some people may find it difficult to understand why "present tense" in English does not necessarily correspond to "present time." For example, why the present tense can also be used with words that indicate the future (i.e. There is a movie tonight.)

• Progressive verbs can also be confusing. (i.e. What are you reading vs. What do you read)

• Adjectives and verbs are often identical in Chinese, so to be is often dropped when trying to express an adjective (i.e. I am busy vs. I busy)

• Chinese doesn't use auxiliaries to form questions. Do is often left out of questions in English, but when they are included, mistakes are prevalent. (i.e. How much homework you have? vs. How much homework do you have?)

• Subjunctive and indicative in Chinese are identical, so Chinese ELLs may also have trouble distinguishing between the two in English (not that regular native English speakers don't-- it's just hard to begin with)

• Like South Asian languages, there are no articles in Chinese, so often they are omitted in English.

• Gender in Chinese is distinguished but pronounced the same, and it may be difficult in the beginning to distinguish between he, she, and it at first.

• Plurality is rarely expressed in Chinese, and often the -s in plural English words are omitted.

• Some words in English are always expressed as a group of items or a generalization and aren't used as singular objects. For example, we never say a news or a furniture. In Chinese, many of these terms can be used as a singular object, so often people may say I have a news for you when they mean they have an announcement.

• Pronouns are used much less often than in English. Sometimes pronouns may be left out, causing misunderstanding (i.e. She came with a book in right hand vs. She came in with a book in her right hand)

• Personal pronouns like I and me are not distinguished in Chinese, so ELLs often use the wrong pronoun. (i.e. I saw she)

• Word order is the same in statements as it is in questions; the inverted English question format is often ignored or used incorrectly. (i.e. You eat where? vs. Where did you eat?)

• Idiomatic expressions in English are difficult to learn for any ELL; however, Chinese is full of them, and often they seem odd when translated into English. For example, Chinese people often say Don’t be polite as a form of welcoming someone into their home and saying Make yourself at home.

An interesting finding I came across is that in Chinese learning great emphasis is placed on rote memorization, especially since all of the written language is learned by memorizing each individual character (why someone like me can study Chinese for almost a decade and still have some trouble reading a newspaper). Many ESL teachers teaching Chinese students find that it’s hard to change their mindset of trying to memorize words and rules and rather learn through practice.

I apologize for the extra long post this week-- if you got this part, I appreciate it!!

*As my mentor Ms. Abdelaziz mentioned in a previous blog post comment, she's heard about how Chinese people might be better at saving money because of a different perception of time in the language-- now we know why!