Chinese and English are probably two of the most widely-used languages in the world. But, did you know that there are actually plenty of differences between Chinese and English?
As a native Chinese speaker who just so happens to also be fluent in English, I’ve given it plenty of thought and I’ve come up with a list of eight key differences between Mandarin and English. Check them out!
1. The difference between Chinese English words
a) English alphabet vs Chinese strokes and radicals
One of the first major differences between Chinese and English you’ll notice is simply how both languages look compared to each other.
English words look like what you’ve been reading so far while Chinese words, to those who do not speak the language, look like random lines that decided to come together: 就像这样.
That’s because while English words are made up of the 26 letters of the alphabet, Chinese characters are made up of 12 different strokes paired with over 200 radicals (部首).
b) English words vs Chinese characters
Now that we’ve mentioned the difference between the English alphabet and Chinese strokes, we can look at some of the differences between Chinese and English words.
In Chinese, every single character has its own meaning whether or not it is part of a word. For example, the character 铅 means “lead”, while 笔 means “pen”. When combined (铅笔), the two characters form the word “pencil”.
In contrast, English words only have meaning when the letters that form the word are arranged in a specific order.
2. Grammatical difference
For language learners, the difference in grammar rules is probably one of the most significant differences between Chinese and English. Let me compare Mandarin, the most common Chinese dialect, with English to show you exactly how different the two languages are.
a) Personal pronouns
Personal pronouns are kind of a big thing in society these days. Knowing the distinction between he/him, she/her, and they/them could literally save you from offending someone or saying something embarrassing.
That problem is virtually non-existent in Chinese simply because pronouns in general are much, much simpler. But for the sake of comparison, I’ll just stick to personal pronouns for now.
In English, you have 12 personal pronouns: I/me, you, we/us, they/them, he/him, she/her, and it. In Chinese, there are only five-ish! I say that because while there are slight differences in writing, the pronouns for he/him (他), she/her (她), and it (它) are all pronounced “ta”. The other personal pronouns in Chinese are I/me (我), you (你), they/them (他们), and we/us (我们).
What’s more, if you’ve noticed, there’s also no distinction between different forms of the same personal pronoun, ie, “he” and “him” is the same word in Chinese! Easy to remember, right?
b) Genitive cases
Simply put, a genitive case in English is mainly used to express possession. So for example, “this pen is mine” or “that’s Alice’s computer”.
Much like personal pronouns, the genitive case is way simplified in Chinese. In fact, it practically doesn’t exist. Instead, to indicate, we just use the word 的 (de). So the above two sentences in Mandarin would be 这支笔是我的 (mine) and 那是爱丽丝的 (Alice’s) 电脑.
c) Verb tenses
Another one of the key differences between Mandarin and English when it comes to grammar is verb tenses.
If you’ve ever had Chinese-speaking friends who started learning English, you might remember that many of them initially struggled with concepts like past, present, and future tenses. That is completely understandable because, once again, these concepts are completely non-existent in Chinese.
Instead of changing or modifying a verb to express the concept of time, Chinese speakers just state the time that something happened or add the character 了 (le) to the end of a verb!
So, instead of saying “Stephen ate fried rice in the morning”, we say “史蒂芬 (Stephen) 早上的时候 (in the morning) 吃了炒饭 (eat le [ate] fried rice)”.
d) Singular vs plural nouns
Similarly, singular and plural nouns are much easier to distinguish in Mandarin. While you need to modify a noun in English to indicate whether it’s singular or plural, in Chinese, simply state the number or collective noun if it’s necessary!
Easier yet, just put the word “a lot” or “many” in front of the noun to indicate plural nouns! This eliminates the need to memorize tricky irregular plural nouns. For example, “a tooth” and “many teeth” in Chinese are simply “一颗牙齿“ and “好多牙齿” respectively. Notice how the word for tooth “牙齿“ never changes.
3. Studying Mandarin vs studying English
The one thing I will say is that Chinese grammar is far easier to grasp than English. As you’ve just read, many grammatical rules that exist in English, such as verb tenses and singular/plural nouns. This makes it less time-consuming to master Chinese grammar.
That’s why the way to study Chinese is often the opposite of English, which focuses on building a strong foundation in grammar first. Most decent books to learn Chinese, on the other hand, will usually start by introducing essential vocabulary to new learners and then work on proper grammar later on.
4. The difference between Chinese and English pronunciation
Another one of the differences between Chinese and English lies in pronunciation. That’s unsurprising given how Chinese characters and English words look worlds apart.
Thankfully, Chinese pronunciation has a romanized system called Hanyu Pinyin which makes it possible to read and pronounce something accurately even if you don’t know the actual Chinese character or the meaning behind a word.
However, it is when we look at Hanyu Pinyin that we realise just how fundamentally different Chinese pronunciation is compared to English.
a) Learning how to pronounce a word
Before we dive into the difference between Mandarin and English pronunciation, I want to highlight something as a native speaker.
Spelling is an English concept that helps someone guess how a word is pronounced. For example, if “letter” is pronounced a certain way because of how it is spelt, then you can pretty guess how “better” is pronounced because of the similar spelling. That does not work in Mandarin at all.
Even a difference of one stroke can completely alter the pronunciation of a Chinese word. For example, the word “king” (王) is pronounced wang, while the word “jade” (玉) is pronounced yu. My advice to new learners is to not use “spelling” as a way to learn Chinese pronunciation.
As cliche as it sounds, the best way to learn Chinese pronunciation is simply by memorizing, and using the dictionary when you encounter something new. Now, unto the actual differences between Chinese and English pronunciation！
b) Word Structure
Looking at Hanyu Pinyin, you’ll quickly realize that there aren’t many instances where a Chinese character ends with consonants. Or rather, there is only a handful of ending consonants in Mandarin. In fact, there are only two: “n”, and “ng”.
In contrast to English where most words end in a consonant, most Chinese characters end in a vowel.
c) Vowels in Mandarin
Speaking of vowels, apart from the usual “aeiou” combinations, Chinese also has a special “ü” vowel that sounds like a cross between “ye” and “you”.
More importantly, in the context of differences between Mandarin and English, Chinese vowels will always sound the same no matter where they are placed (in terms of Hanyu Pinyin spelling). For example, the letter “a” in “antler” and “insomnia” sound different, but the same letter in “zhang” and “ba” sound exactly the same.
In addition, English speakers can distinguish the words “beat” and “bit” in a conversation because we recognize the difference between long and short vowels. Those do not exist in Mandarin.
d) Heteronyms, Homonyms, and Homographs
As some of you might have caught on, the good thing about Chinese vowels sounding the same all the time means that you won’t have confusing instances in Mandarin where there are different pronunciations for the same word, such as “present” – to offer, and “present” – to be in attendance.
That said, there are a few irregular characters in Mandarin that sound different despite being written in the same way. I can only think of two right now: 会 (usually pronounced hui but becomes kuai when paired with 计, meaning accountant) and 角 (usually pronounced jiao but becomes jue when paired with 色, meaning role).
e) The usage of tones
You’ve probably heard many people say that Chinese is a tonal language. What exactly does that mean?
Basically, there are five tones in Mandarin (including the 轻声 – neutral tone). Depending on the tone that you use to pronounce a certain character, the meaning can vastly differ. A popular example is the distinction between 睡觉 (shuijiao – sleep), pronounced with a sharp falling tone and 水饺 (shuijiao – dumpling), pronounced with a slow rising tone.
Basically, in English, rising and falling tones are used to stress the nature of a sentence, ie, when asking a question. In Chinese, it’s an essential part of the language itself!
5. Difference between Chinese and English sentences
You should probably not be taken aback that English and Chinese sentences look and sound very different. As someone who speaks both languages fluently, let me highlight exactly what’s different.
a) Sentence length
Remember how I said earlier that personal pronouns are quite simplified in Mandarin? While that may mean less time spent on grammar books, it also means that Chinese sentences need to be succinct.
Think about it: Because the English language has a lot of pronouns and modifiers, it’s possible to form long, complex sentences without causing any confusion. On the other hand, because there aren’t a lot of pronouns in the Chinese language, each sentence needs to be separated by punctuation to keep with the flow.
Here’s an example: The Great Wall of China is a barrier that stretches thousands of miles and was constructed by Qin Shi Huang who was the First Emperor of China.
In Mandarin, this long sentence would be 万里长城是个长达万里的壁垒， 由中国第一位皇帝——秦始皇所建。
b) Active vs passive sentences
Another one of the key differences between Chinese and English sentences is the use of active and passive voice. While the passive voice in English is common, Mandarin speakers usually stick to using active sentences.
c) Emphasis on a sentence
Relating to the use of active and passive voices, you’ll also realise that Chinese and English speakers usually emphasize different parts of the sentence. English usually emphasizes the first part of the sentence while Chinese does the opposite.
Think of it this way: English sentences start by telling you the conclusion before going into the details while Chinese sentences build up to the conclusion. Here’s an example:
English: I got rich because I worked really hard.
Mandarin: 我因为努力工作所以发财了。 (Because I worked hard, I got rich).
6. The use of Idioms
Idioms are an elegant part of language that is rarely used in daily conversation in English. That’s one of the differences between Mandarin and English. Chinese idioms are part and parcel of daily life.
When speaking in Mandarin, it’s not uncommon to drop a cheng yu (four-character idiom) here and there. No one bats an eye because it’s simply a way of expressing something more vividly and concisely.
In fact, Chinese speakers usually don’t even realize they’re using idioms until someone points it out!
7. Typing in Chinese vs in English
One of the subtle differences between Chinese and English is only noticed by people who type in both languages.
In English, typing is as easy as keying in the letters according to the keyboard. In Mandarin, there are different ways depending on where you live and what type of keyboard you are using. Hanyu Pinyin is most commonly used. You simply type in the pinyin, then choose from a selection of Chinese characters. It sounds complicated, but once you get used to it, it’s almost second nature.
In Taiwan, on the other hand, they use a “bopomofo” keyboard which contains strokes rather than alphabets. I can’t say much about that because even I don’t know how to use it!
In addition, the punctuation looks different too, and there are some punctuations that only appear in Mandarin such as “《》” which is used to indicate the name of a book or movie.
8. Using the dictionary in Chinese vs in English
Just like typing, looking up something in a Chinese dictionary is not the same as using an English dictionary. In English, you usually need to roughly know how a word is spelt.
On the other hand, in Mandarin, while you CAN use Hanyu Pinyin to look up a word, it’s much more common to use a radical plus the number of strokes to find a word. After all, if you don’t know the meaning of a Chinese character, you probably wouldn’t know how to pronounce it either!
Conclusion
And there you have it: Eight (lucky Chinese number!) key differences between Chinese and English! Did any of these surprise or did you already know all about them? Or perhaps you were inspired to further improve your Mandarin proficiency because of this? Well, if that’s the case, I recommend starting with these apps to learn Mandarin before venturing into Chinese textbooks!
Don’t forget, if you ever need some expert help, I’ve got you covered!