英语学习者的七个坏习惯 之二

竹声

$ |( A$ R# M0 l- Y# J2 ?" H; Q/ p" F2 hSeven bad habits – 2    Let our mother tongue rule

Sorry guys, this post has been a bit overdue since the first one. For one thing, I've been distressed by some final exams, but this shouldn't be an excuse. The real struggle has actually been determining which should come next among the seven habits. I finally decided that our mother tongue is in fact a major interference in our speech.

Needless to say, Chinese learners boast mastery of grammar when it comes to written questions – whether it is multiple-choice or writing. However, the irony is that we probably have the worst grammar when it comes to speaking. When observing closely, we can hear grammatical errors in almost every sentence. Very few people who move here after their teenage years can be error-free most of the time.

! ^0 N* ], L1 m( X) wIn general, we make two types of mistakes in spoken English. The first one is that we don't typically change the verb form to reflect tenses. Even though using past tense for past events is basic grammar, we frequently ignore it. So, it is not uncommon to hear sentences containing elementary mistakes, such as "I go to the movies yesterday."

3 ]! _" a1 A, m  n" O8 Q% SAnother more common and deadly mistake is that we have no idea about male and female pronouns. Since in spoken Chinese we don't differentiate "he and she," we often use the wrong pronouns in English, which can cause tremendous confusion. For example, I overheard the following conversation between a Chinese international student Leo and his Canadian classmate Tom.

Tom: How are you doing, man?
( `) X6 i- ]9 V' m, T% X, fLeo: Not very well.
) X/ V! k2 ]3 m- [/ vTom: How come?
; N9 t- ^5 L0 n; t7 R1 d( ]2 xLeo: Actually I miss my girlfriend in China.
Tom: Oh really?
7 \5 x3 X/ l. b- ]- P5 y9 ~Leo: Yeah, I miss him every day.
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No wonder this Canadian guy got so confused that he thought his classmate Leo had a different sexual orientation.

Interestingly, these types of problems rarely happen in immigrants from other countries, since their languages such as Spanish and Hindi have verb tenses and gender pronouns in speech, yet Chinese doesn't.

It is no easy task to break this chronic habit, but we must pay close attention and gradually improve our accuracy to avoid fundamental mistakes like these. When speaking English, we really cannot let our mother tongue rule.

雲吞

平心而论Leo还是不错的，最起码能想起来动词后边用宾格。

linazhang

billzhao

Good point.
8 `+ Z4 ^7 M& F7 F7 [$ @4 @( ]Perhaps your next post should be around the topic of how we can decrease the negative influence of our mother tongue.

billzhao

I think it is really interesting a topic.
When we write in English, we seldom make mistakes as Leo does. But why do many of us keep making the mistake in spoken English?

竹声

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billzhao 发表于 2013-12-16 15:45
4 _7 K% O1 {% p3 C- `I think it is really interesting a topic.
# s! ~3 E5 h0 F+ c( C) V; Q( H8 x* VWhen we write in English, we seldom make mistakes as Leo ...

You're right. This is truly a paradox - with such excellent written grammar,  why can't we speak with reasonable accuracy?
/ _/ O! T. U% w2 S' q: c# xI presume there are two main reasons. One reason is that when writing, we have time to think about what we are going to write; we can even correct the mistakes after. However, speaking is spontaneous, since we have little time to think about what we're going to say. This spontaneity makes it difficult to plan our speech ahead or correct it after.
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Another major cause of our poor oral grammar is due to our mother tongue, which is drastically different from English, in terms of grammatical structure and verb tenses. An absence of gender pronouns in spoken Chinese explains why we frequently misuse pronouns in conversations. In addition, we often forget to use singular or plural forms for nouns, as Chinese grammar contains no such rules.
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