SPOILER ALERT!
Mandarin Chinese And English
Mandarin is the not the Chinese language, relatively, it is one in all the many Chinese dialects. Around seventy p.c of Chinese audio system use Mandarin. It is not only the accepted written language of Chinese, but it is usually considered as the enterprise language of China.
Many non-native Mandarin audio system believe that Mandarin is a very difficult language to be taught, especially for these who are used to talking the English language. But why is this so? Is Mandarin so completely different from English? Let us compare them.
Difference in origin
The English language is carefully associated to Flemish, Dutch, Low German and Frisians, which belong to the Germanic language household. Mandarin, however, evolved from Old Chinese and Middle Chinese. The truth that Mandarin and English originated from totally different language households might explain the most important differences between the two tongues.
Difference in Alphabet
While the English alphabet is composed of twenty-six letters, Mandarin, however, does not have any. Instead, the Mandarin written language is composed of characters. Mandarin's logographic system is composed of about 10,000 characters, of which an average Mandarin speaker needs to know solely about 3,000 to speak with the language well. While in English, you want to place the letters together to type a phrase, in Mandarin every character corresponds to a phrase, which can be mixed to type more advanced phrases or ideas.
Difference in Phonology
Mandarin is a tonal language, which means it uses pitch to convey phrase meanings. In English, adjustments in pitch help categorical sentiment. Mandarin has 4 tones, high level, rising, dipping and falling; the impartial tone makes the fifth. These tones render completely different meanings to words.
In addition, English vowel sounds are more quite a few as compared to Chinese. For instance, phrases like full/fool and match/ft are typically mispronounced by Mandarin audio system. Dipthongs, just like the lengthy vowel sounds, are normally shortened to make a single sound.
Difference in vocabulary
The mixture of particles with quick verbs to create phrasal verbs does not apply in Mandarin. In English, this is very common with verbs like "look as much as", "give in" and others.
Difference in Grammar
Mandarin is not an inflected language. The sentiment is communicated by adverbials (such as time or method), phrase order or contextual meaning. Different verb types and tenses do not convey the notion of time in Mandarin. That is dissimilar to English the place a lot of the concept is expressed by the usage of verb tense and auxiliaries, reminiscent of in walk/walks/walked or is/was/are/were. Basically, the verb system of English is more advanced than that of Mandarin.
Modal verbs (can, will, ought to, etc.) are limited in Mandarin. English, in the meantime, makes use of modals to express various intensities or meaning. That's the reason why, for example, Mandarin audio system could seem to be dictatorial when they make recommendations, requests and appeals.
The word order is also totally different between English and Mandarin. In questions, English inverts the topic and the verb, whereas Mandarin expresses this by including phrases to indicate a query. In Mandarin, adverbials come before verbs; whereas there are a lot of rules that direct their place in English sentences.
Indeed, there are vital differences between Mandarin and English. But this mustn't hinder you from studying Mandarin (if you are an English speaker) or English (if you're a Mandarin speaker) as studying both tongues brings so many benefits.
Many non-native Mandarin audio system believe that Mandarin is a very difficult language to be taught, especially for these who are used to talking the English language. But why is this so? Is Mandarin so completely different from English? Let us compare them.
Difference in origin
The English language is carefully associated to Flemish, Dutch, Low German and Frisians, which belong to the Germanic language household. Mandarin, however, evolved from Old Chinese and Middle Chinese. The truth that Mandarin and English originated from totally different language households might explain the most important differences between the two tongues.
Difference in Alphabet
While the English alphabet is composed of twenty-six letters, Mandarin, however, does not have any. Instead, the Mandarin written language is composed of characters. Mandarin's logographic system is composed of about 10,000 characters, of which an average Mandarin speaker needs to know solely about 3,000 to speak with the language well. While in English, you want to place the letters together to type a phrase, in Mandarin every character corresponds to a phrase, which can be mixed to type more advanced phrases or ideas.
Difference in Phonology
Mandarin is a tonal language, which means it uses pitch to convey phrase meanings. In English, adjustments in pitch help categorical sentiment. Mandarin has 4 tones, high level, rising, dipping and falling; the impartial tone makes the fifth. These tones render completely different meanings to words.
In addition, English vowel sounds are more quite a few as compared to Chinese. For instance, phrases like full/fool and match/ft are typically mispronounced by Mandarin audio system. Dipthongs, just like the lengthy vowel sounds, are normally shortened to make a single sound.
Difference in vocabulary
The mixture of particles with quick verbs to create phrasal verbs does not apply in Mandarin. In English, this is very common with verbs like "look as much as", "give in" and others.
Difference in Grammar
Mandarin is not an inflected language. The sentiment is communicated by adverbials (such as time or method), phrase order or contextual meaning. Different verb types and tenses do not convey the notion of time in Mandarin. That is dissimilar to English the place a lot of the concept is expressed by the usage of verb tense and auxiliaries, reminiscent of in walk/walks/walked or is/was/are/were. Basically, the verb system of English is more advanced than that of Mandarin.
Modal verbs (can, will, ought to, etc.) are limited in Mandarin. English, in the meantime, makes use of modals to express various intensities or meaning. That's the reason why, for example, Mandarin audio system could seem to be dictatorial when they make recommendations, requests and appeals.
The word order is also totally different between English and Mandarin. In questions, English inverts the topic and the verb, whereas Mandarin expresses this by including phrases to indicate a query. In Mandarin, adverbials come before verbs; whereas there are a lot of rules that direct their place in English sentences.
Indeed, there are vital differences between Mandarin and English. But this mustn't hinder you from studying Mandarin (if you are an English speaker) or English (if you're a Mandarin speaker) as studying both tongues brings so many benefits.
