"Western learners style Chinese"

[crazillo]

Having studied Chinese two years at university level now, I figured my written and sometimes even spoken Chinese sentences sounds like German/English 1:1 transitions. As far as I know, this has improved over the last couple months, but I still catch myself doing it every once in a while.

In this thread, I would like to ask you guys to collect some typical phenomenon with me. We can also discuss why they occur so often, and what can be done to cut short on their influence in our (daily) conversations and essays. The thread might be a little similair to the "how to do good writing" thread. However, it's one thing to give a piece of advice, but examining problems we're facing might just be as important.

A couple examples I noticed:

- inflational use of personal pronouns

(我的书，他的钱包在我的口袋里...)

- some conjunctions and/or filling words are used way too often

(因为。。。所以。。。，就是。。。)

- S-V-O sentence structure (maybe this is just about learning progress though)

(e.g. one of our articles says 祖国大陆已经不再以一般的处理内战遗留问题的方式来解决这一问题。 / If I wrote it myself, I probably would have written: 祖国大陆解决这一问题的方式就是。。。。)

Can you think of anything else?

[ma3zi1]

I've got one:

Using 了 or 過 to make past tense verbs even when it's unnecessary given the context.

譬如：「我昨天去過看一部電影，看了以後去了吃晚飯。吃飽了，就去了看我女朋友。」

Perhaps 孟乐岚 can weigh in on this? It is my understanding that she is/was a Chinese-as-a-foreign language teacher primarily to English-speaking students.

[creamyhorror]

(e.g. one of our articles says 祖国大陆已经不再一般的处理内战遗留问题的方式来解决这一问题。 / If I wrote it myself, I probably would have written: 祖国大陆解决这一问题的方式就是。。。。)

I think there's something wrong with the first sentence: maybe there should be an 以 somewhere? (And it should be 一般地.) But even then it feels convoluted. Maybe I need a bit more context.

[crazillo]

Yes, I missed out on the 以， it's fixed now, but it's 一般的 for sure.

[alkahez]

Can someone help to clarify crazillo's illustration? I do not quite get the illustrations.

In the first example why do you say 我的书，他的钱包在我的口袋里... is inflational use of personal pronouns? If I add some connecting words would that be correct? As in:

我的书和他的钱包正在我的口袋里

And, for the second 祖国大陆已经不再以一般的处理内战遗留问题的方式来解决这一问题, what is the function and when do you generally use "以"? I'm can't get it. Can I replace 以 with 用这？

祖国大陆已经不再用这一般的处理内战遗留问题的方式来解决这一问题.

Thanks.

[Lu]

Overuse of 们: 我跟朋友们看电影 when you mean a few random friends, not a specific group.

[crazillo]

Can someone help to clarify crazillo's illustration? I do not quite get the illustrations.

In the first example why do you say 我的书，他的钱包在我的口袋里... is inflational use of personal pronouns? If I add some connecting words would that be correct? As in:

我的书和他的钱包正在我的口袋里

As you can clearly see, I didn't use a 、 but ，instead, so 我的书 and 他的钱包在我的口袋里 are seperated from each other.

In German, it is very common to say "my book is on the table", or in general to add personal pronouns. However in Chinese, I hardly hear things like that. I think it is more common to say 书在桌子上 than 我的书在桌子上. “和” is not a personal pronoun but a conjunction.

And, for the second 祖国大陆已经不再以一般的处理内战遗留问题的方式来解决这一问题, what is the function and when do you generally use "以"? I'm can't get it. Can I replace 以 with 用这？

祖国大陆已经不再用这一般的处理内战遗留问题的方式来解决这一问题.

Thanks.

My intention here was to show that we like to do Subject-Verb-Object-"the rest" sentences. We'll say things like "China exports silver". In a Chinese sentence, espacially written Chinese, you'll find a lot more between those three elements of a sentence usually, and it's not so hard to translate when you know you have to look at the end of the sentence first. When you speak Chinese yourself, western learns will often stick with the S-V-O pattern and then continue with 就是 and the rest, e.g. 中国大陆在中华民族伟大复兴的进程中发展了正确、有效的措施和方式。 or 德国和法国二战后进入了和平发展的历史新阶段。Do you guys get what I mean?

[alkahez]

In German, it is very common to say "my book is on the table", or in general to add personal pronouns. However in Chinese, I hardly hear things like that. I think it is more common to say 书在桌子上 than 我的书在桌子上. “和” is not a personal pronoun but a conjunction.

I believe you CAN actually use 我的书在桌子上. It is NOT wrong. You can even say, 我的那一本书在桌子上. This is to make it clearer that the book actually belongs to me. 书在桌子上 (shorten) is used because it's assumed that you know which book is referred to. 他的钱包 is similarly correct, I believe.