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Where Prepositional Phrase Go - in a Chinese sentence vs in an English sentence Languages are fascinating. When we were having a discussion on prepositional phrase in the QQ group, I realized something very interesting: In Chinese, subject + prepositional phrase + verb e.g. 我 在中国 住 (I in China live) In English, subject + verb + prepositional phrase e.g. I live in China. I recall that when I first started to learn English, I always drew comparisons between my mother tongue Chinese and my target language English. As I'm getting better in English and I speak and write in English all the time, it seems that Mandarin's hidden at far back of my brain, I don't think about Mandarin any more. Today when I was talking to a learner of Chinese, Mandarin came back to me. How amasing the brain works!
Oct 8, 2015 11:40 PM
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Where Prepositional Phrases Go in a Chinese sentence vs in an English sentence

Languages are fascinating. When we were having a discussion on prepositional phrase in the QQ group, I realized something very interesting.
In Chinese, a sentence is constructed as subject + prepositional phrase + verb e.g. 我 在中国 住 (I in China live). In English, it is constructed as subject + verb + prepositional phrase e.g. I live in China.

I recall that when I first started learning English, I always drew comparisons between my mother tongue Chinese and my target language English. As I get better in English and speak and write in English all the time, it seems that Mandarin's hidden at the far back of my brain. I don't think about Mandarin any more.

Today when I was talking to a learner of Chinese, Mandarin came back to me. How amazing the brain works!

October 9, 2015

Thanks to Melissa Williams!

 

 

Where Prepositional Phrases Go - in a Chinese sentence vs in an English sentence

...

In Chinese, a sentence is constructed as subject + prepositional phrase + verb e.g. 我 在中国 住 (I in China live)
In English, it's constructed as subject + verb + prepositional phrase e.g. I live in China.

I recall that when I first started learning English, I always drew comparisons between my mother tongue Chinese and my target language English. As I get better in English and I speak and write in English all the time, it seems that Mandarin's hidden at the far back of my brain, I don't think about Mandarin any more.

Today when I was talking to a learner of Chinese, Mandarin came back to me. How amasing the brain works!

October 9, 2015
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