# Chinglish and Englinese



## xlwoo (Jul 8, 2012)

Now, many English-speakers and Chinese speakers know what Chinglish means. Chinglish, Chinese-English, comes from those Chinese who can't learn standard English and can only use Chinese sentence structure in which they speak English words, such as “long time no see”, meaning “haven't seen each other for a long time”. This phrase can only be used to refer to people, can't be used for things. And also “people mountain, people sea”, meaning crowds of people gathering together and occupying a vast area like mountain or sea does. This structure can also be used in “documents mountain, meetings sea”, meaning a lot of documents to read, which are piled up like a mountain, and so many unimportant meetings to attend, which often continue for hours without effective results.

Quite a few Chinese people who learn English don't pay attention to how English-speakers say, but use their knowledge of English grammar and English words they choose to form sentences to express their ideas. The way they say is not how native English-speakers say. That is also deemed Chinglish.

Nowadays, with the open policy of China, many foreigners come into China. They want to learn Chinese, but a few of them cannot learn Chinese language well and speak Chinese by using the way of the expression in English language just like some Chinese people speak Chinglish, that is Englinese, English-Chinese. There are some examples: when Chinese people say [FONT=MingliU, serif]我每天早上上學[/FONT][FONT=Arial, sans-serif], [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]literally meaning “I every morning go to school.” But some foreigners will put it in Chinese like that: 我上學每天早上, leterally meaning “I go to school every morning.” It's typically English, but not typically Chinese. They use word order in English sentence in Chinese sentence, making it Englinese. Another example is that some foreigners will say [/FONT][FONT=MingliU, serif]我會說中國話[FONT=MingliU, serif]不多[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Arial, sans-serif], [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]literally meaning “I can speak Chinese not much.” But we Chinese will say [/FONT][FONT=MingliU, serif]我不會說多[FONT=MingliU, serif]的[/FONT][FONT=MingliU, serif]中國話[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Arial, sans-serif], l[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]iterally meaning “I can't speak much Chinese.” Or [/FONT][FONT=MingliU, serif]我只會說一點中國話[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif], literally meaning “I can only speak a little Chinese.”[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]
In my opinion, if the Chinese want to learn English or if foreigners want to learn Chinese, they must know and learn how the native speakers say. [/FONT]


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## Bloggsworth (Jul 8, 2012)

Don't worry, the Chinese will learn to speak properly eventually :welcoming: It is the same when the British speak German, a language following the old Roman sentence structure, where the verb is often at the end of the sentence, or word order is different in a question - This gave rise to the 2nd World War film in which Germans in British uniforms infiltrated an English village. "Went the Day Well", the title of the film, was a question asked by an infiltrator which gave away the nationality of the speaker. Even though you may know the words of a foreign language, your normal sentence structure, under the pressure of speaking, takes precedence over the learned one. The French would say _le main droite_ where we would say _the right hand_, so an Englishman, unsure of himself might when speaking French say _le droite main_.


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## Kevin (Jul 8, 2012)

I wonder if you could have picked two more difficult languages to learn..


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## ScrapNook (Aug 30, 2012)

It all sounds Greek to me! ( I couldn't resist.)

I am American and my husband is Canadian and even we don't agree on English.  He says Canadians speak the Queens English, which is the proper way to speak it.


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## Potty (Aug 30, 2012)

I'm _from_ England and I've only ever heard the Queen speak the Queens English. Every day, off the street, English people speak un-intelligible nonsense.


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## ScrapNook (Aug 31, 2012)

Ha ha. Wait until I tell my husband!


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## Divus (Aug 31, 2012)

"Every day, off the street, English people speak un-intelligible nonsense".

Well that phraseology in itself is very questionable English.

Perhaps a English speaking foreigner, who has never visited London, would be surprise to know that he or she might have a slight difficulty in finding a native born Englishman or woman in Oxford Street or any of the fashionable parts of London likely to be visited by the tourist.    London is a highly cosmopolitan city where more dialects of English are spoken than anywhere else in the world.

If that same tourist were to spend some time watching TV, they might be surprised as to how much of the air time was allocated to American produced programs - which are certainly  not using English English.

However nowadays defining 'English' English might also be a difficult task.
Sadly Cockneys don't speak like wot they used to, even if you can find one of 'em.

Take the word _'amazing' _out of use and a high proportion of British youth will be struck dumb.


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## The Backward OX (Aug 31, 2012)

Bloggsworth said:


> The French would say _le main droite_ where we would say _the right hand_



But I thought the Froggies always wiped with the left hand, and so would say, _le main gauche.

 O_r am I confusing them with Muslims?
اليد اليسرى


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