Understanding English Mistakes Made By Native Chinese Speakers

Everybody knows learning a new language is not easy. Learning English is especially hard for native Chinese speakers, because English and Chinese are so different in many ways. I think it might be an interesting idea to write down some common mistakes made by native Chinese speakers. It may more or less help native English speakers understand their Chinese speaking friends better. Most of these mistakes make their English looks or sounds strange, while they can usually be understood with enough context. But some of them may cause misunderstanding and confuse the audience. I make these mistakes all the time. I found it is hard to avoid them especially when I talk fast because my brain is not used to these language features. In the meantime, for the same reason, I tend to tolerate those mistakes. For example, I never pay attention to the speaker's using of "he" or "she". So even if the speaker uses the wrong pronouns, I can figure it out who the speaker refers to from the context. That is probably why Chinese people can easily understand each other even when they talk in English with these mistakes.  Many things could lead to language mistakes, but I will focus on mistakes related to the grammar differences between English and Chinese.

Using wrong gender of pronoun. This is the most common mistakes, because in Chinese, "she", "he" and "it" are pronounced in the exactly same way. The grammar differentiates "she", "he" and "it", but not very strict. So native Chinese speakers are not used to considering gender of pronouns, specially for "she" and "he". A few of my friends often complained to me that they got lost after I talk for a while, because I often randomly switch between "he" and "she" and they can not follow whom exactly I refer to.

Using wrong verb tense. In Chinese, tense is not used. Instead, people rely on context or some adverbs to figure out the time when the action takes place. For example:

吃 (eat)

烤鸭 (roast duck)

吃烤鸭 (eat roast duck)

吃完烤鸭了 (ate roast duck)

要去吃烤鸭 (will eat roast duck)

正在吃烤鸭 (be eating roast duck)

Misusing singular/plural forms of nouns and ignoring verb agreement. Chinese does not have grammatical number, which causes three common mistakes:

• Misusing singular/plural forms of nouns, like  "I have a computer", " I have two computer" or "I have many computer".
• Using uncountable nouns as countable nouns, like "bought some waters".
• Ignoring verb agreement, like "Mike drink milk", "there is apples on the table".

These mistakes could be very misleading when there is no enough context indicating the real quantity.

Mixing definite and indefinite articles. This is another very common mistake even when native Chinese speakers write in English, because in Chinese, we do not need to use articles. You may find native Chinese speakers tend to use "this", "these", "that" and "those" instead of articles, since these words are used in a similar way as articles in Chinese. The most common mistakes about articles are missing articles when they are needed or adding articles when they are not needed. I remember when I was in high school, a lot of questions in English exams are about articles. I would say most of them do not really help me understand how to use articles. This is an example:

Let’s go to ____ cinema-that’ll take your mind off the problem for ___ while.

A. the; the
B. the; a
C. a; the
D. a ; a

Not using subjunctive mood. Chinese grammar does not differentiate the indicative and subjunctive mood, so native Chinese speakers often use the indicative mood when the subjunctive mood should be used. This could be pretty confusing especially when the subjunctive mood should be used to express a hypothesis.

Using wrong prepositions or missing prepositions. In Chinese, prepositions are not very critical in grammar. One preposition could be used in many scenarios for different meanings. People often depend on the context and adverbs to decide the meaning of prepositions. For example, the preposition "在" can be used in these sentences:

在墙上 (on the wall)
在冰箱里 (in the refrigerator)
在床上 (in the bed)
在那本书里 (in that book)
在家 (at home)
在桌子下 (under the desk)
在北京 (in Beijing)

Many English verbs work with certain prepositions, such as "go to", "shoot at", "single out" and so on. This is not common in Chinese either. In many cases. prepositions are just not needed.

http://www.englishdaily626.com has some excellent examples of Chinese-style misusing prepositions:

Chinese Style: The sun rises from the East.
American Style: The sun rises in the East.

Chinese Style: The thief got in from the window.
American Style: The thief got in through the window.

Chinese Style: Let's begin from page 10.
American Style: Let's begin at ( on ) page 10.

Chinese Style: There is a limit in my patience.
American Style: There is a limit to my patience.

Chinese Style: Is your house insured for fire ?
American Style: Is your house insured against fire ?

Chinese Style: This is the key of my room.
American Style: This is the key to my room.

Chinese Style: He is a student of Harvard University.
American Style: He is a student at Harvard University.