Discussion Groups / ESL Teaching / April 2008

Chinese (Mandarin) is enormously different from English. The size of the
difference is one of the reasons that teaching by translation causes so many
problems.

Let us consider the basic pronouns.

The first person pronouns in English (I & me) are both translated by the same
Chinese word. So, when one says that the English word "I" means the Chinese
word "woe'", one is creating problems for the Chinese student.

Naturally they will say, "John push I".

The third person pronouns in English (he, him, she, her, & it) are all
translated by the same Chinese word. So when one says that the English word
"he" means the Chinese word "tah'", one is creating problems for the Chinese
student.

Naturally they will say, "He is my mother" & "He is my cat." (Taiwanese
speakers of English famously make "he" - "she" errors. And it makes sense
that they do, since they were given misleading information in the first
place.)

After 20+ years experience, I can describe virtually endless examples of
common mistakes which are created by the translation method of teaching.