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1.0 Introduction介绍
随着中国经济影响力的增强，中国人的影响力也随之增强。与世界上最流行的语言——英语相比，汉语在很多方面都有很大的不同，根据负迁移理论，这些差异给那些想学汉语的人带来了巨大的挑战（陈，1999）。本文旨在通过比较汉语和英语的差异，帮助学习者更有效地学习和掌握汉语。本文首先介绍了汉语和英语在词汇方面的差异。然后介绍了汉语和英语在语法、音位学和句法上的差异。
With the increase of China’s economic influence, the influence of Chinese has also increased. Compared with English, the world’s most popular language, Chinese is very different in many aspects, according to negative transfer theory, these differences have brought great challenge to those who want to learn Chinese (Chen, 1999). The aim of this paper is to help learners to learn and master Chinese more effectively by comparing the differences between Chinese and English. This article first introduces the differences between Chinese and English in terms of lexicon. Then it presents the differences in grammar, phonology and syntax between Chinese and English.
2.0 Main Body主体
2.1 Differences in lexicon词汇差异
2.1.1 Scope of application 适用范围
有时，一个中文单词往往包含多种含义，但在英语中，相同的含义通常用几种词语表达（Kim、Liu和Cao，2017）。例如，英语中有三个词：“fit”、“suit”和“match”。在汉语中，这三个词的意思可以包含在同一个词中。而汉语词可以指代意义的大小、颜色、个性、品味等方面。在英语中，它的意思分为三类：“合身”更适用于大小、形状的合身；在质量、颜色、设计上用“合身”来表达，“合身”更适用；而“合身”则常用于“合身”的需要、品味和条件。可以看出，在英语中，有时它非常仔细地分词，而在汉语中，一个简单的词可以概括出几个意思。
Sometimes, a Chinese word often contains many kinds of meanings, however, in English, a same of meaning is often expressed by several kinds of words (Kim, Liu and Cao, 2017). For example, in English, there are three words: "fit", "suit" and "match". In Chinese, meanings of the three words can be included in a same word. And the Chinese word can refer to the meaning in size, color, and personality, taste, and other aspects. In English, the meaning is divided it into three categories: "fit" is more used for fitting in size, shape; to express in “fitting” in quality, color, design, "suit" is more suitable; and "match" is often used in terms of “fitting” in “needs, tastes, and conditions. It can be seen that in English, sometimes it divides the usage of words very carefully, while in Chinese, a single simple word can summarize several meanings.
2.1.2 Meaning of words词语含义
同样的词，在汉语和英语中，有不同的象征意义，即隐含意义（刘涛，2012）。例如，“红色”在英语中有“暴力”的意思，但中国人认为它是“吉祥和幸福”；“蓝色”在汉语中有“欣赏”的意思，但在英语中，它是“消极和淫秽”。“龙”是中华民族的象征，是“高贵的”。然而，在英语中，它是“暴力”的象征；在英语中，“狗”是“诚实可信”的象征，所以他们有“你是幸运的狗”和“爱我爱我的狗”的说法。然而，在汉语中，“狗”有贬义。
The same words, in Chinese and English, will have different symbolic meanings, that is, implicit meanings (Liu and Tao, 2012). For example, "red" has the meaning of "violence" in English, but Chinese people think that it is "auspicious and happy"; "blue" has the meaning of "appreciation" in Chinese, but in English, it is "negative and obscene". "Dragon" is a symbol of the Chinese nation and it is "noble". However, in English, it is a symbol of "violence"; in English, "dog" is an "honest and trustworthy" symbol, so they have the saying that "You are a lucky dog" and "Love me love my dog". However, in Chinese, "dog" has a derogatory meaning.
2.1.3 Collocation of words
Although in Chinese and English, sometimes they express the same meanings, their collocations are different depending on the cultural background of the two countries (Zou and You, 2001). For example: "strong tea" in Chinese, it should be translated as a highly concentrated tea; "at a stone's throw" in Chinese also has an idiom corresponding to "a short distance"; "the apple of one's eyes" corresponds to Chinese idiom: "treasured daughters."
2.2 Differences in grammar
2.2.1 Part of speech differentiation
In Chinese, a same word can be used for different parts of speech; in English, when a word can not be used for different parts of speech (Yang, 2008), for example:
She is very kind.
Her kindness moved me deeply.
In the first example, “kind” is an adjective, as a predicative expression, and in second example, “kindness” is a noun, used as a subject; in Chinese, they can be expressed by using a same word, and it is unnecessary to distinguish whether it is an adjective or a noun.
2.2.2 Tense
Most of the tense in English is reflected in predicate verbs, while the tense in Chinese is expressed through some function words. For example,
I have finished my homework. (我已经完成我的家庭作业)
In this example sentence, in Chinese, a function word “已经” is used to denote the completion of the action. In English, the completed structure of the predicate verb: “finish” is used to represent that this action has already occurred.
In English, especially in English for science and technology, it prefers to use a passive voice. Although in Chinese, passive words are also used to indicate that an action is passive, this expression is far less common than the passive voice used in English, for example, “It must be pointed out that…”, “It must be admitted that… “, “It is imagined that…”, and so on.
These commonly used passive sentences are customary expressions. They are frequently found in English. However, in the process of translation, the passive voice in English is often changed into an active voice in Chinese, so that it can be more consistent with Chinese expression habits.
2.3 Differences in phonology
The finals in Chinese are the vowels in English. There are 24 finals, which can be divided into three types: single finals, complex finals and nasal finals (Wu and McMahon, 2012). There are 20 English vowels in total, which can be divided into monophthongs and diphthongs (Gowhary, Azizifar and Rezaei, 2016). Compared with English diunsounds, Chinese complex finals are faster in sliding and the duration is still relatively short (Liu, Yeung, Lin and Wong, 2017). For example, the pronunciation of “ei” and “ai” in Chinese complex finals is much smaller than that of English vowels, but the tongue much leans back.
There are 28 pronunciations of consonants in English, and there are 23 consonants in Chinese (Wu and McMahon, 2012). The pronunciation of consonants in English is mainly based on the vibration of pronunciation (Liu, Yeung, Lin and Wong, 2017). It can be divided into two types of consonants: voiceless consonant and voiced consonants. In Chinese consonant sounds, these two types of consonants are rarely used. And there is no lip-tooth friction sound in Chinese pronunciation (Gowhary, Azizifar and Rezaei, 2016).
Chinese is very typical in tone, and can be divided into four types: level tone, the rising tone, the falling-rising tone, and the falling tone and the light tone, each Chinese character has its own fixed tone, while the meaning of different Chinese tones is not the same (Liu, Yeung, Lin and Wong, 2017). While the tone of English words does not change the meaning of words, and English has rising, falling, rising, and falling tone, in English, it determines the tone of a sentence by the rising tone and the falling tone of the last re-reading syllable (Gowhary, Azizifar and Rezaei, 2016).
2.4 Syntactic differences
2.4.1 Syntactic structure
In English, as long as there are no errors in the structure, many meanings can often be expressed in a long sentence; in English sentences, long modifiers can be used in simple sentences to make sentences longer, and clauses can also be used to make sentences more complicated (Wang and Liu, 2016). These clauses are often connected with the main clause or other clauses by clause guide words (Yuan, 2017). The whole sentence is a whole although it is complicated on the surface (Lu and Ai, 2015). Chinese is just the opposite, meaning of a sentence is expressed directly through words, different meanings are often expressed in different short sentences, it is for this reason that in English, there are long and complicated sentences, which are often translated into many short sentences in Chinese (Wang and Liu, 2016; Lu and Ai, 2015).
2.4.2 Subject-verb concord
In English sentences, the predicate is governed by the subject and its verb must be consistent with the subject in person and number (Zhang, Laroche, Richard, 2017), for example,#p#分页标题#e#
I like English. (The subject is the first person.)
She likes English. (The subject is a third person, singular.)
The children were in the classroom 2 hours ago. (The subject is plural.)
In the above examples, the subjects are different, and there are singular and plural subjects. The predicate has to be adjusted accordingly. All of them reflect the strict subject-verb concord requirements in English sentences. In Chinese, the subject does not dominate the predicate.
2.4.3 Sentence constituent
Most of notional words and most of the phrases in modern Chinese can be used as subjects; in English, only nouns can be used as subjects. In modern Chinese, a predicate appears after the subject, verbs, adjectives, etc. can all be predicates, while in English, a predicate is mainly acted by a verb (Cumming, Yang, Qiu, Zhang and Lai, 2018). In Chinese, two or more predicates can be used, but in English, it is generally necessary to add some words between two verbs to indicate direction or connection.
3.0 Conclusion
This article analyzes the differences between Chinese and English in terms of lexicon, grammar, phonology and syntactic structure. From a lexical perspective, there are differences in the scope of application of words between Chinese and English, the meaning of words, and the collocation of words. From a grammatical point of view, there are differences in the distinction of word parts, tenses, and passive voice between Chinese and English. From a phonetic perspective, there are differences in the use of vowels and consonants, as well as tones. From a syntactic perspective, the two have differences in the structure of sentences, the relationship between a subject and the predicate, and sentence constituent. Of course, this article only summarizes some of the differences between Chinese and English. For Chinese learners, understanding these differences is very important for mastering Chinese.
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