Why is my English so poor?

Hsin-hao Su

December 2, 2008

Hello!!!

各位同學你們好。

。好們你學同位各

各位同學你們好。

How are you, everyone?

Hello!!!

各位同學你們好。

。好們你學同位各

各位同學你們好。

How are you, everyone?

Direct Translation: Word by Word

An apple a day keeps the doctor away.

An apple a day keeps the doctor away.一顆蘋果一天保持一個醫生遠。

Meaningful Translation

An apple a day keeps the doctor away.

一天一顆蘋果能使你遠離醫生。

An apple a day keeps the doctor away.一顆蘋果一天保持一個醫生遠。

Direct Translation: Word by Word

一天一顆蘋果能使你遠離醫生。A day an apple can let you away the doctor.

一天一顆蘋果能使你遠離醫生。An apple a day keeps the doctor away.

Common Mistakes

• He/She

• +s or not +s

• much or many

• Miss articles : A/An/The

• Verbs : Past tense

He/She

• 100 years ago, there is no “she” in Chinese.

• He/She 他• Now, Chinese uses 他 / 她 for He/She.

• But, the pronunciations of 他 and 她 in Chinese are exactly the same.

• Therefore, we often call our mom/wife, he.

+s or not +s

• In English, a noun +s means many of them.

• For example, cars = two or more cars.

• In Chinese, we don’t change the noun itself.

• For example, car = 車子 ; cars = 車子們 .

• But, two cars = 兩輛車子

much or many

• In Chinese, we don’t distinguish a countable noun and a uncountable noun.

• Basically, in Chinese, there is only “a lot of”.

• For example, many cars = 很多車子• A lot of information = 很多資訊• Much love = 很多愛

Miss articles : A/An/The

• You saw examples before that articles in Chinese looks like 一 X where X depends on the following noun.

• For example, 一輛車子 = a car

一顆蘋果 = an apple

一本書 = a book

Miss articles : A/An/The

• Since we use adjectives instead of articles, we used to miss a or an in writing English.

• Or, we just use “a” or “the” instead. Even we don’t mean “the”.

• For example, we use to write:

Give me a apple. Or, give me the apple.

給我一顆蘋果。

Verbs : Past tense

• The nightmare for a Chinese native speaker in writing English is the tense.

• In Chinese, we use only adverbs to tell time. We don’t change the verb itself.

• Therefore, in writing English, we forget to convert the verb into past tense all the time.

Verbs : Past tense

• For example,– I went to eat lunch. = 我剛去吃午餐– I go to eat lunch. = 我去吃午餐– I will go to eat lunch = 我將要去吃午餐– I am going to eat lunch. = 我正要去吃午餐– I have gone to eat lunch. = 我已經去吃過午餐

Verbs : Past tense

• For example,– I went to library yesterday. = 我昨天去圖書館– I go to library today. = 我今天去圖書館– I will go to library tomorrow. = 我明天去圖書館