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2.1 Differences in the Use of Nouns
Nouns in English have a strong distinction between the singular and the plural, which can be classified into countable nouns and uncountable nouns. That is to say, most of the singular countable nouns in English have to be added to s/es when plurals are needed. However, in Chinese the original nouns can be used as both singular and plural with no changes in form. This plural form can be only reflected in pronouns．You can add “们’’to the end of a word to show the plural form, such as “孩子们”, the nouns themselves do not change at all. English is quite different from Chinese in terms of singular form and plural form so that it’s difficult for Chinese learners to distinguish which are countable nouns and which are uncountable nouns. Therefore, learners should pay more attention to the changes of nouns in English learning.
For example:
a. I want to borrow three books from him.
我想从他那借三本书。
b. I have borrowed one book from him.
我已经从他那借了一本书。
From the examples we can see clearly that “book” is just one while “books” are at least two. Here the “s” indicating plural, but in Chinese, the noun “book” (in Chinese, shu) does not change when the number changes.
2.2 Differences in the Use of Verbs
Firstly, English grammar calls for agreement between subject and verb in terms of number and person. This means the verb has to change its form according to the person used as subject. As for number, when two or more persons or things are used as the subject, the predicate of the sentence should also be in plural form. While in Chinese there is no such kind of usage, no matter who is the subject, no change will happen to the form of verb.
For example:
a. I want to buy a book.
我想买一本书。
b. She wants to borrow a book from me.
她想从我这借一本书。
c. They want to borrow books from me.
他们想从我这借书。
Secondly, the use of verbs in English is related to “tense”, “aspects”, and “voice”. Different tenses are used to express different time when it happens. So according to different time there are present tense, past tense and future tense which respectively represents the things happen now, in past and in the future. All these tenses can be further pided into simple tense, continuous tense, perfect tense and perfect continuous tense. Each tense specifying the different period of time has a distinctive form. For instance, “do” and “does” are the marks of the simple present tense, while “have/has done” stands for present progressive, and verbs has to change according to the concept of time in the context. Sometimes, auxiliaries have to be used. Nevertheless, Chinese verbs do not change in this way. Instead, Chinese relies on expressing aspect. For example, the aspect particle (了) can be used after a verb or at the end of a sentence to imply that an action has complete. And we may use “着”or “正在”for “progressive”.
For example:
a. I have had my lunch.
我吃过午饭了。
b. I am having my lunch.
我正吃着午饭呢。
As for voice, verbs have to make more changes to show active or passive voice, which is related to tense and aspect. But passive voice in Chinese is simply shown by the use of “被” and “让”.