4 ms·

This is true. In Chinese, there's no such thing as articles like 'a' 'an' and 'the' to trip you up, much less gender to every noun. And verb conjugation is pret

by iamwil 16y ago

This is true. In Chinese, there's no such thing as articles like 'a' 'an' and 'the' to trip you up, much less gender to every noun. And verb conjugation is pretty much non-existent.

vorg 16y ago
"In Chinese, there's no such thing as articles like 'a' 'an' and 'the' to trip you up, much less gender to every noun." The 50+ classifiers can be hard to remember, though admittedly you can just use 个 every time when speaking and it doesn't sound too bad. "And verb conjugation is pretty much non-existent." When to use each verb modifier (e.g. 了, 过, 正在, 起来, 下去) and how they combine with negators and auxiliaries (e.g. 没, 不, 会, 能) seems more difficult than in English.
CWuestefeld 16y ago
Those things may well trip you up when writing. But in reading English and other European languages, those things can be clues to deciphering the stuff you don't know. They help you see how the words of the sentence relate to each other, so without them you've got a little less information for puzzling it out.
Naga 16y ago
Articles are used to distinguish between whether or not you are talking about a specific item, or a general item (which I'm sure you know). This is actually very valuable. I've studied Latin, and sometimes you can't know which is which, because Latin doesn't distinguish. Also, I don't think 'a' and 'an' are fundamentally different. 'An' just has the extra sound to smooth speech over. It doesn't really matter if you write "a apple" or "an apple". Also, verb conjugation in English is pretty nonexistant, compared to other languages, like Romance languages. There are usually three different verb forms: the standard (write), the past (writed) and the third person singular present (writes). I know there are some irregularities, but generally if you want to say a verb, you use the standard.

by iamwil 16y ago

This is true. In Chinese, there's no such thing as articles like 'a' 'an' and 'the' to trip you up, much less gender to every noun. And verb conjugation is pretty much non-existent.

vorg 16y ago

"In Chinese, there's no such thing as articles like 'a' 'an' and 'the' to trip you up, much less gender to every noun." The 50+ classifiers can be hard to remember, though admittedly you can just use 个 every time when speaking and it doesn't sound too bad. "And verb conjugation is pretty much non-existent." When to use each verb modifier (e.g. 了, 过, 正在, 起来, 下去) and how they combine with negators and auxiliaries (e.g. 没, 不, 会, 能) seems more difficult than in English.

CWuestefeld 16y ago

Those things may well trip you up when writing. But in reading English and other European languages, those things can be clues to deciphering the stuff you don't know. They help you see how the words of the sentence relate to each other, so without them you've got a little less information for puzzling it out.

Naga 16y ago

Articles are used to distinguish between whether or not you are talking about a specific item, or a general item (which I'm sure you know). This is actually very valuable. I've studied Latin, and sometimes you can't know which is which, because Latin doesn't distinguish. Also, I don't think 'a' and 'an' are fundamentally different. 'An' just has the extra sound to smooth speech over. It doesn't really matter if you write "a apple" or "an apple". Also, verb conjugation in English is pretty nonexistant, compared to other languages, like Romance languages. There are usually three different verb forms: the standard (write), the past (writed) and the third person singular present (writes). I know there are some irregularities, but generally if you want to say a verb, you use the standard.