Compare English and Chinese

This essay provides a comparative analysis of the similarities and differences between the English and Chinese languages. It explores the phonological, grammatical, lexical, alphabetical, and syntactical variations between the two languages. The essay also discusses the challenges faced by Chinese learners in speaking English due to these fundamental differences.

Running Head: Compare English and Chinese 1
Compare English and Chinese

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Introduction
There have been several studies till date that have done a comparative analysis of Chinese
and English language. In these studies scholars have pointed out to the similarities and
differences that exist within these two languages. Belonging to two different language families, it
is obvious that there are differences between the two languages. Researchers have pointed to the
wide differences in terms of Orthography (visual text), syntax (grammatical structure),
phonology (speech structure) and semantics (phrase meaning). However, aside from the
mentioned dissimilarities, there exist several similarities between these two languages. For
instance, children go through similar stages in becoming skilled readers in either of the two
languages. Similarly, although the written script remains similar, there are lots of regional
dialects in each of the languages. In the following essay, we would talk about the similarities and
dissimilarities between Chinese and English languages.
Body
Similarities between Chinese and English
First let us talk about the similarities that exist between these two languages belonging to
two different language families. The first similarity between the two languages is the ordering of
words. Both Chinese and English are found to have same sentence structure and word order.
Secondly, there number of inflections that exist in Chinese and English language are very few
and limited (Asher & Moseley, 2018). Another point of difference is the fact like English,
Chinese lave different regional dialects. For instance whereas in China there exists Wu dialect
that is spoken around Yangtse delta, Kejia dialect that ids spoken in Fujian province etc., In
English too there are several regional dialectical varieties like Scottish English, Australian
English etc. There are also similarities in stages that children go through for becoming skilled
readers in either English or Chinese.
Differences
Phonology

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While talking of the differences between Chinese and English, let’s first focus on to the
phonological difference that exists between Chinese and English. Phonology is referred to as the
structure of Speech. It is generally found that Chinese students are troubled by the phonological
systems of the English language. There is no existence of some of the phonemes of the English
language in Chinese. There is also difference in terms of innotation and stress patterns.
Compared to English Chinese is a tone based language. Thus Chinese make use of pitch
(lowness or highness of voice) to differentiate the word meanings of a Phoneme sound. In
comparison to the same, English language while being spoken makes use of pitch to demonstrate
emotions and not to give a different meaning for the sound produced as compared to Chinese.
Another important point of difference between the Chinese and English language in terms
of phonetics is the use of vowel sounds. As compared to the Chinese, there are more vowel
sounds in English. This results in faulty pronunciation of several words like full/fool, it/ eat, etc.
The speakers or learners of Chinese also find it difficult to pick the difference between
the letters r and l. Thus, rake is often mispronounced as lake and lice as rice. Similarly, speakers
belonging to south of China have a problem in spotting the difference between “l” and “n”.
Another major area of difference between Chinese and English is in the existence of a common
final consonant. Whereas a common final consonant exists in English, such a feature is
frequently absent in Chinese. Thus, Chinese learners of English speaking either add an extra
vowel at the end of the word or fail to produce the consonant while speaking the word.
These difficulties with English words along with problems of innotation results in the
Chinese speaking highly accentuated English.
Grammar
When comparing g English and Chinese, another major area of difference is the grammar.
Whereas in English information is mostly carried by verb inflections (is/were/are/ eat/ ate/ eats/
eaten, etc.) and by the use of auxiliaries, Chinese is as compared an uninflected language. Thus,
in comparison to English, in Chinese the meaning is conveyed through shared understanding of
context, word order and adverbials. In contrast to English, Chinese does not handle the concept

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of time through use of different verb forms and tenses (Wang & Jing, 2013). This is the reason
that Chinese learners find difficulties with the verb systems existing in English.
In English, modal verbs are used for expressing shades of meanings. However, Chinese
modals do not convey the wide range of meanings as compared to their English counterparts.
Thus, the Chinese learners might fail to make use of sufficient modals in their English speech.
Thus, while making requests the Chinese learners might come across as preemptory while
making suggestions or requests.
Another important grammatical form missing in Chinese is Article. So, Chinese learners
face difficulties in correct use of articles while speaking English. There are also differences in
word order in English and Chinese. For example, in Chinese in notations are used for conveying
questions. As compared to English, subject and verb are not inverted while framing questions in
Chinese. In English there exist complex rules relating to the position of sentence elements like
verbs, adverbs and nouns. However, Chinese have definite rules regarding these sentence
elements like Nouns cannot be post-modified and adverbs should come before verbs.
Thus, whereas in English we would normally say “I will return to England next week” in
Chinese it would be said as “Next week I will return to England”
Vocabulary
In English there exist a number of short verbs that are often combined with prepositions
or adverbs to give phrasal verbs (Zhao & Cao, 2016). Some of the examples of such phrasal
verbs are give in, take on etc. However, Chinese language does not have this lexical feature.
Thus, Chinese learners would find it difficult to comprehend texts that contain such verbs and
would generally avoid to use such verbs while they speak.
Alphabet
There is no alphabet in the Chinese language as compared to English language. Instead
there exists a logographic system in the Chinese language (Li, 2014). The main concept in a
logographic system is that there are symbols for representation of words instead of in English
wherein words are made up of alphabets. This functional difference might result in the difficulty
of the Chinese learners in reading English texts and correctly spelling English words.

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Lexical stress
An important and noticeable feature of the English language is the fact that whereas some
syllables of the English language are strong others are week. The stress pattern in English is
therefore manifested in the form of length, pitch and loudness. Thus the stressed syllables are
louder, higher pitched and lengthy as compared to the syllables that are unstressed. Sometimes
meaning and function of a word in English is demonstrated through this stress that is applied
differently. However, Chinese learners of English are mostly not aware of this difference in the
rhythmic pattern of Chinese and English. Thus the Chinese learners tend to put equal stress on
each syllable or put random stress on syllables in a word.
Function words like conjunctions, auxiliary verbs and prepositions that are pronounced
most often in their weak forms in English are lesser in frequency in the Chinese language.
Whereas there are certain functional words in Chinese that are pronounced more prominently as
compared to other words like the “pronouns”. This leads to difficulties for the Chinese learners
of English as they try to speak English.
Syntax
There are Syntax differences too between the Chinese and English as languages. For
instance instead of innotation, Chinese language makes use of topic-comment word order. Thus
the sentence always begins with a topic in Chinese and at the end there is rhematic information.
Secondly where as in English the words that follow, modify the words that precede them; In
Chinese it is just the opposite (Lu & Ai, 2015). That is in Chinese preceding words modify the
following words.
Therefore, it can be said that Chinese sentences are more right-headed as compared to the
English which tend to be more left-headed. If literally translated, lots of sentences seeming
natural in English would seem unnatural in Chinese and Vice-versa.
Conclusion
As discussed in the above pages, Chinese and English belong to two different language
families. Thus there are major fundamental differences between these two languages. As
discussed in the above pages there exists Syntactical, grammatical, lexical, alphabetical, and

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phonological and vocabulary differences between the two languages. There also exist certain
similarities as illustrated above. In face the brain of the child learning the two different languages
are found to adapt different brain regions depending on the orthography features of the language
(Cao, Brennan & Booth, 2015). Thus, Chinese learners find it difficult to converse in English
due to these fundamental differences between the two languages.

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References
Asher, R. E., & Moseley, C. (Eds.). (2018). Atlas of the world's languages. Sydney: Routledge.
Cao, F., Brennan, C., & Booth, J. R. (2015). The brain adapts to orthography with experience:
evidence from English and Chinese. Developmental science, 18(5), 785-798.
Li, B. (2014). A comparative study of English and Chinese passives from the perspective of
figure-ground theory. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 4(7), 1370-1375.
Lu, X., & Ai, H. (2015). Syntactic complexity in college-level English writing: Differences
among writers with diverse L1 backgrounds. Journal of Second Language Writing, 29,
16-27.
Wang, Y., & Jing, C. (2013). Differences of English and Chinese as Written Languages and
Strategies in English Writing Teaching. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 3(4),
647-652.
Zhao, G., & Cao, Z. (2016). Contrastive Study of English and Chinese Word Order from the
Perspective of Figure-ground Theory—A Case Study of The Moonstone and Its Chinese
Version. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 7(2), 389-397.