4 ms·

English must be pretty damn hard, too. When I studied conversational Mandarin a few years ago, it gave me a real sympathy for native Chinese speakers learning E

English must be pretty damn hard, too. When I studied conversational Mandarin a few years ago, it gave me a real sympathy for native Chinese speakers learning English. Basically, in Mandarin, there are no verb tenses or cases or persons. I go, you go, he go, they go, or I is, you is, he is, they is. You don't know when it happened. Today, yesterday, tomorrow. You get the timing from the context. How hard it must be to understand that it's a different word if I went yesterday, we are going tomorrow, he might have gone, if we could have gone....I can't do more than basic conversation in Mandarin, but studying it really helped me to understand the challenges some of my friends and coworkers have faced.

crazychrome 12y ago
Exactly. Even after 10 years living in UK I still make mistakes with verb. Consider this: http://www.verbix.com/webverbix/English/have.html http://www.verbix.com/webverbix/English/have.html, a table just for "have"!
- dublinben 12y ago
  What's so complicated about that? It's far from the most irregular verb in the language. The participle is really the only curve ball.
- Raphael 12y ago
  with verbs
- Gorkys 12y ago
  Dude, that's nothing. Romance languages are much worse. Check out Italian: http://italian.about.com/library/verb/blverb_avere.htm http://italian.about.com/library/verb/blverb_avere.htm
  - frooxie 12y ago
    Well, then there's Finnish with its noun cases, etc: http://static.fjcdn.com/pictures/Perkele_ddd3f7_5063375.jpg http://static.fjcdn.com/pictures/Perkele_ddd3f7_5063375.jpg
mikeash 12y ago
Even something as trivial-seeming as gender causes trouble. I know a lot of Chinese speakers who I'd happily describe as fluent in English, and just about all of them routinely mix up he/she, him/her, and the like. It's like the trouble that English speakers have with noun genders in Romance languages, but taken to an extreme.
- vorg 12y ago
  Chinese also mix up "last" and "next", just as English-speakers learning Chinese mix up 上 and 下 for time words. The English metaphor for time is climbing a mountain, whereas the Chinese one is script written top to bottom.
- zhemao 12y ago
  Wait, really? That's surprising, since pronouns in Chinese are gendered. However, they are all homophones, so that might be the reason for confusion.
  - mikeash 12y ago
    You're right, it is kind of surprising. I guess the spoken takes precedence over the written somehow. There's even occasionally an incorrect "it" thrown in for good measure.
  - Zarel 12y ago
    It's not that surprising when you consider that native English speakers routinely mix up "your" and "you're". Native Chinese just aren't used to thinking about pronoun gender when speaking.
    - mikeash 12y ago
      It's not quite the same, though. Native English speakers don't mix up 你的 and 你是 when speaking Chinese. Although "your" and "you're" sound the same, it seems that we still inherently consider them to be different words, and the mixup when writing is more of a spelling problem. I can't think of a better equivalent, though. Fiancé and fiancée come close, but most English speakers don't even know that there are different ways to write that for male and female.
zhemao 12y ago
Also, things like articles (the, a, an). My Chinese father, an academic biologist, sometimes asked me to help him copy-edit papers. It was difficult for me to explain when to use the definite article, the indefinite article, or no article at all. For me, as a native speaker of English, there wasn't a hard-and-fast rule. One way just "felt right".
df41 12y ago
Tell me about it. I still do not understand why you need to put am after I but is after he. Isn't it clear 'I is' is different from 'he is'? Another thing troubling me is whether to reply yes or no on questions like "didn't you agree?". I also think it would be nice for English to have more compound words like "sunflower". I am not even starting on the cultural part yet, since I am still studying the evolvement from illegal to undocumented.
- omegaham 12y ago
  All of the different forms of "to be" come from different words in old languages. We get "am" and "is" from Latin, but I am not sure about the other tenses. Google says that all of the others are a collection of words "Indo-European," which indicates that it is some language from ancient times. As for answering questions with a presumed answer, one of the best things to do is to restate the verb when you answer. "Didn't you agree with him?" "Yes, I agreed with him." This way, it is clear to everyone.
- randuser 12y ago
  > Another thing troubling me is whether to reply yes or no on questions like "didn't you agree?" Native English speakers often get confused by this one too. You can respond either yes or no in those situations as long as you specify the one you wanted afterwards. e.g. "Don't you agree?" "Yes, I agree" and "No, I agree" would both be acceptable.
  - frooxie 12y ago
    I've heard of many situations where East Asian students of English cause confusion by answering "Yes. Yes, I don't agree." — which doesn't sound natural in English.

crazychrome 12y ago

Exactly. Even after 10 years living in UK I still make mistakes with verb. Consider this: http://www.verbix.com/webverbix/English/have.html http://www.verbix.com/webverbix/English/have.html, a table just for "have"!

dublinben 12y ago
What's so complicated about that? It's far from the most irregular verb in the language. The participle is really the only curve ball.
Raphael 12y ago
with verbs
Gorkys 12y ago
Dude, that's nothing. Romance languages are much worse. Check out Italian: http://italian.about.com/library/verb/blverb_avere.htm http://italian.about.com/library/verb/blverb_avere.htm
- frooxie 12y ago
  Well, then there's Finnish with its noun cases, etc: http://static.fjcdn.com/pictures/Perkele_ddd3f7_5063375.jpg http://static.fjcdn.com/pictures/Perkele_ddd3f7_5063375.jpg

mikeash 12y ago

Even something as trivial-seeming as gender causes trouble. I know a lot of Chinese speakers who I'd happily describe as fluent in English, and just about all of them routinely mix up he/she, him/her, and the like. It's like the trouble that English speakers have with noun genders in Romance languages, but taken to an extreme.

vorg 12y ago
Chinese also mix up "last" and "next", just as English-speakers learning Chinese mix up 上 and 下 for time words. The English metaphor for time is climbing a mountain, whereas the Chinese one is script written top to bottom.
zhemao 12y ago
Wait, really? That's surprising, since pronouns in Chinese are gendered. However, they are all homophones, so that might be the reason for confusion.
- mikeash 12y ago
  You're right, it is kind of surprising. I guess the spoken takes precedence over the written somehow. There's even occasionally an incorrect "it" thrown in for good measure.
- Zarel 12y ago
  It's not that surprising when you consider that native English speakers routinely mix up "your" and "you're". Native Chinese just aren't used to thinking about pronoun gender when speaking.
  - mikeash 12y ago
    It's not quite the same, though. Native English speakers don't mix up 你的 and 你是 when speaking Chinese. Although "your" and "you're" sound the same, it seems that we still inherently consider them to be different words, and the mixup when writing is more of a spelling problem. I can't think of a better equivalent, though. Fiancé and fiancée come close, but most English speakers don't even know that there are different ways to write that for male and female.

zhemao 12y ago

Also, things like articles (the, a, an). My Chinese father, an academic biologist, sometimes asked me to help him copy-edit papers. It was difficult for me to explain when to use the definite article, the indefinite article, or no article at all. For me, as a native speaker of English, there wasn't a hard-and-fast rule. One way just "felt right".

df41 12y ago

Tell me about it. I still do not understand why you need to put am after I but is after he. Isn't it clear 'I is' is different from 'he is'? Another thing troubling me is whether to reply yes or no on questions like "didn't you agree?". I also think it would be nice for English to have more compound words like "sunflower". I am not even starting on the cultural part yet, since I am still studying the evolvement from illegal to undocumented.

omegaham 12y ago
All of the different forms of "to be" come from different words in old languages. We get "am" and "is" from Latin, but I am not sure about the other tenses. Google says that all of the others are a collection of words "Indo-European," which indicates that it is some language from ancient times. As for answering questions with a presumed answer, one of the best things to do is to restate the verb when you answer. "Didn't you agree with him?" "Yes, I agreed with him." This way, it is clear to everyone.
randuser 12y ago
> Another thing troubling me is whether to reply yes or no on questions like "didn't you agree?" Native English speakers often get confused by this one too. You can respond either yes or no in those situations as long as you specify the one you wanted afterwards. e.g. "Don't you agree?" "Yes, I agree" and "No, I agree" would both be acceptable.
- frooxie 12y ago
  I've heard of many situations where East Asian students of English cause confusion by answering "Yes. Yes, I don't agree." — which doesn't sound natural in English.