Grammar terminology

[Shelley]

I am a native English speaker, I never learnt English grammar formally. This is proving to be a big problem in learning Chinese grammar,

 

For instance what is a preposition, a predicate, and a whole bunch more like this. I never learnt to parse English sentences and so I can't do it with Chinese.

 

I am finding this to be a really big hurdle.

 

Has anyone ever come across Chinese grammar explained without these terms being used. I have tried learning them but this is almost like learning a third language.

 

I have a grasp of the basic things like nouns, verbs, adjective, subject, object, but that about as far as it goes. Things like past participle and future perfect have me 

 

Do I need to these things to learn Chinese grammar or is there another way?

[Pedroski]

Of course there is another way. Do you know the film "Sleeping Dictionary"?

 

Don't concentrate on grammar, just learn Chinese! Recently someone said to me here in this forum, ‘when you start concentrating on the 'how' and not on the 'why', you will learn much faster' (or words to that effect). My trouble is, the 'why' interests me a lot

 

You can try looking at the link underneath  for info on English Grammar. Grammar is, however, not an explanation of anything, it just points out how we use language, and a good grammar book will also point out all the exceptions to any rule that was ever thought up, such that, 'rule' becomes a very dodgy word to use. Nothing is defined in grammar.

 

grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/index2.htm

[AdamD]

Oh, this is hard. Doubly so when your Chinese-born teacher learned all the correct English grammar terms for teaching (I still don't know what present perfect tense is, despite being told weekly for two years).

 

As Pedroski said, it's easy to get bogged down in all the technical details, especially when most grammar books refer to predicates, conjugation, etc., but you'd probably do better to just get Chinese right the way you got English right—through repetition and correcting mistakes.

[DavidL706]

I think I'm in a similar situation with you.  I learned Chinese and English roughly both as first languages, having grown up in the States with Chinese-speaking parents.

 

What did help me was learning other languages, particularly Latin and Classical Arabic, which helped familiarize myself with the terminology of grammar.  Of course, both languages are quite different from Chinese in terms of structure, but it did help me figure out what terms meant.

 

Nevertheless, even after all that, if you ask me to explain why, sentence "A" is a better choice than sentence "B", I sometimes still have a hard time explaining it, other than just saying that one sounds more "natural" than the other.

[Shelley]

I have never heard of the film Sleeping Dictionary. I will see if I can find out more.

 

So if I concentrate on following the example sentences and coping the format will I stand a good chance of getting it right? This strategy is fine to start with but if I want to create my own sentences I feel as if I am floundering around with no where to start.

 

I tried sticking to the word order I had been taught in classes years ago "Subject, Time When, Place, Verb, Object, Time Duration" but I still seem to get things the wrong way round.

 

If I stick to short simple sentences I usually have no problems, but when I try to construct longer more "grownup" sentences it all seems to fall apart.

 

I have been reading Chinese grammar wiki and I have the Modern Mandarin Chinese grammar and workbook, but this is where i find myself snowed under with grammar terms.

 

Anyone come across any good books that don't rely on these terms to explain grammar?

[Johnny20270]

One of the problems I first encountered when studying a Chinese grammar book was that I had totally forgotten my English grammar. I use Basic Chinese Grammar by Yip Po-Ching and he is heavy on grammatical terminology

 

So I just started reviewing my English grammar, I found Wikipedia quite good for that. I made my own notes as I find linguists use a style of writing that seems obtuse to me. 

 

Also I have a bad habit of thinking that there is only one correct word order. Hence, I see contradictions in some examples from grammar books, that is, the author has changed word order without any apparent explanation. I send these examples to my Chinese friend (who's a linguist) and she always has to remind me that, as in English, there is not one sole word order in Chinese sentences. I have no clue, so just quoting her comments

[Shelley]

I am open to the fact that there no hard and fast rules when it comes to word order, but as it was explained to me by my Chinese teacher (she was born in china but is European) because there are no tenses to Chinese verbs it is important if you want convey when something happen to put the time when in the right place so as to get the information across and to avoid confusion with time duration.

 

I am trying to move up a level as it were with my spoken Chinese and this is one of the hardest bits, I have a fair vocabulary but I don't have the grammar. I know about and believe I understand the use of 了, stumble over  shi.....de construction, I can use 过,  i know there is more and have been exposed to it but i don't seem to be able actually use it.

 

My spoken Chinese sounds like baby talk as I speak in short little phrases. I really want to improve my spoken Chinese and figured I needed to improve my grammar to do this.

 

So any ideas?

[Johnny20270]

well, your level is above mine, but I guess this is relevant. I find that I can mimic a lot of pimsleur, Rosetta stone, Chinese pod etc but when it comes to independent thought I am a bit lost. If I speak to my friend in my baby Chinese she says "yes that's correct" but then seems to talk to her friend in a totally different style. For example, I always seem to use pronouns, whereas I noticed Chinese don't seem to use and seem to leave words out. I always use 应该 where they seem to just use 该. Also the style of speaking seems to be different than my text books. This is the hard (and frustrating part) for me. I think I have made progress and realize I am lost in even basic 'natural' talk

 

Do you talk to many native speakers in Chinese?. At your level you will probably have more success than I did and will start to have more fluid conversations. 

 

I liken it to for example, doing it an academic degree, you maybe able to pass exams but experience, passage of time needs to take place before you actually 'get it'.

 

Have you tried ChinesePod? Maybe that would work for you. Seems more fluid and natural

[Shelley]

I don't know why you think my level is above yours, I don't

 

I feel I have spent years learning Chinese but not learning to speak it. I have no one to speak Chinese with, i have been mostly self studying, but I did take (small group) private lessons for many years, but it was more like a Chinese language club than lessons as the teacher although good was not strict with speaking Chinese only in class.

 

i did a university evening class a few years ago and achieved a diploma at stage 2a. Not sure how this relates to other exam scores.

 

I seem to be good at reading and writing characters, listening and speaking not anywhere as good as I would expect after all the years i have put in. I reckon its simply from lack of actually speaking to anyone.

 

I am taking steps to change this

 

I will give ChinesePod a look, thank you.

[lechuan]

Hi Shelley,

 

There are two grammar books I would recommend:

 

I'd start out with Basic Patterns of Chinese Grammar.  Minimizes the use of technical terms, and attempts to cover the most useful structures. You'll still need to know a few basic grammatical terms, but the majority of explanations are non-technical.

 

Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar (or Chinese Demystified if you want something less comprehensive, but more guided) is a tad bit more technical, but the author has done a great job of explaining things clearly, and starts off with a brief glossary of technical grammar terms, with examples, and explanations, that pretty much cover all the terms you'll ever need to know.

[lechuan]

And as for the value of grammar, yes you can learn a language completely fine without a lick of grammar, as most of us have done with our native language. And I've seen a lot of successful language learners who have learned the language mainly through imitation, conversation, and access to natives who let them know what sounds "wrong" and "right".

 

For someone with less language exposure and access to native correction, it's nice to have grammar rules to know what's "right" and "wrong".

[Shelley]

I have Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar and the workbook, this is the book that made go wah I don't know all the terms.

 

I will have a look for Basic Patterns of Chinese Grammar sounds like the sort of thing I am looking for.

 

And yes you are right with no native correction or conversations I would like something like that.

 

Thank you

[Ruben von Zwack]

If you want my five cents, I don't think you need to dive into the maddening depths of Latin tenses and passives for Chinese.

 

But a few basic things like adjective and adverb and "noun phrase" are, in my opinion, very useful for 地, 得 and 的. I'm sure there are other examples too, but 地 and 得 are the ones where I'm always glad I know what an adverb is.

 

Is there an English grammar reference maybe that pupils use in a certain year of school? I think of pupils around 14-16 (at least, in German - I don't know at which age and how English grammar is taught in English schools).

 

I seem to be good at reading and writing characters, listening and speaking not anywhere as good as I would expect after all the years i have put in. I reckon its simply from lack of actually speaking to anyone.

I found myself at that point too! But it doesn't have to stay that way

[Shelley]

Update: I have just signed up for a course online at edx for Intermediate Chinese grammar here https://www.edx.org/course/pekingx/pekingx-20000001x-zhong-ji-yi-yu-yu-fa-3001#.U-6CUKOouho

 

Looks like it should be a big help. Starts Sept.15th will let you know how it goes.

 

The site edx looks great going to try some other courses they have on china and Chinese when I complete this one.

[li3wei1]

Shelley, lots of good advice above about continuing with Chinese, but I would argue that sitting down and learning English grammar is worth doing as well. At least the terminology; you can choose what level of detail you want to get into. First, it will improve your writing and possibly speaking (maybe even reading and listening). Second, if you ever want to teach English as a Second Language (which you will be doing if you get a language exchange partner), it will be tremendously useful. Third, it will help you with learning any foreign language. If you decide to learn French, or another European language more related to English, it will be extremely useful. I can't recommend any books, but I'm sure there are some out there. Don't worry about the relevance to Chinese, just find a book that you can understand and that takes you deeper than you already are. 

 

My daughter is learning French at school, and apparently no one has explained to her the idea of declension, i.e. that verb forms change according to the subject: I am, you are, he is. It's a real obstacle to her learning. It's not relevant to Chinese, because Chinese verbs don't decline, but it's basic stuff for most other languages, and despite her being a native speaker, she's never given it any thought.

[Shelley]

@li3wei1 I take your point that it is worth learning English grammar terms, the reasons you give are very good but in my case I will never be teaching anyone else Chinese, its just not on the cards even as a language exchange partner because this something I won't be doing.

 

I have already learnt French and again without grammar terms as I was born in Quebec and French is a required subject at school and is needed in real life. I learnt declension but was never told the term. I spent 15 years in Quebec before I left so my French, although rusty, is at quite a high level.

 

I just wanted to be able to read my Chinese Grammar books and understand them, I look up the terms but it still is difficult because it is not easy and it doesn't flow.

 

I am still learning grammar terms but not at the expense of learning Chinese grammar, if you see what I mean

[Michaelyus]

I would second those terminology-light books provided above, even though I personally like detailed grammars (I loved reading through the 4th Edition of Byrne & Churchill's Comprehensive French Grammar). There is also the book Side by Side Chinese and English Grammar which you could try; it doesn't look too heavy-going, and the grammatical terms appear to be balanced with enough examples to allow you to understand what they mean, and how they correspond to the Chinese.

 

 

My daughter is learning French at school, and apparently no one has explained to her the idea of declension, i.e. that verb forms change according to the subject: I am, you are, he is. It's a real obstacle to her learning. It's not relevant to Chinese, because Chinese verbs don't decline, but it's basic stuff for most other languages, and despite her being a native speaker, she's never given it any thought.

 

 

Pedantic note: the grammatical inflections of verbs is called conjugation, whereas the grammatical inflection of nouns/pronouns/adjectives (in Indo-European languages at least) is declension (not to be confused with declination, which is obsolete in this sense in English and now only used in the sense of an incline or the state of being angled).

 

The difference is not only important for most Indo-European participles (e.g. French allé vs allée), but also when referring to the systems of other languages. E.g. in both Japanese and Korean, the various types of constructions that linked to adjectives in European languages are mostly verbal in nature, so they conjugate and do not decline. Interestingly, Chinese actually shows behaviour similar in this regard to these languages.

[Shelley]

That side by side book sounds excellent, I will give that a look.

 

Thanks for the correction, conjugate, declension its all the same to me.

 

I am trying to improve my grammar terms but I don't want to spend too much time on it.

[AdamD]

I have Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar and the workbook, this is the book that made go wah I don't know all the terms.

 

That book's superb. Usually I skip the egghead jargon and jump straight to the example sentences.

 

Advanced grammar knowledge is always invaluable, as others have said, but if you feel it's getting in the way rather than helping your progress, don't panic about it. Some of that stuff's more inscrutable than the offside rule.

[Shelley]

That's a good approach, but i worry skipping the egghead stuff will mean I miss something or not understand it fully.

 

I have decided not worry too much the terms and try and get the content.

 

And i am starting an online class about grammar see #14 so hopefully improvements will happen.