Chinese grammar is easier than that of any European language. Limited morphology means there is only one verb form no matter whether you are talking about the past, present or future and no matter who is the agent. There is no nominative, accusative or dative (one of the two banes of my existence when I was studying Latin, French, Italian and German).
我是 I am
你是 you are
他/她/它是 he/she/it is
我们是 we are
你们是 you are
他们是 they are
There is no masculine, feminine or neuter for nouns (the other bane of my existence).
Simple, elegant and easy to remember.
After the first 2 years of studying Chinese in Australia, I rarely made a grammatical error. There's just not that much to remember! I certainly can't say the same thing about any of the European languages I learnt when I was in High School. I truly sympathise with all students of English, many of whom after studying for 10 years or more still struggle with grammar and syntax.
Who said Chinese was hard to learn?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Spot on, Sandy.
I plug this with my sts. every week!
Also, to parents who see Chinese often as too hard.
Yes, they cannot hear and see this enough!
Greg
Post a Comment