Are you a Chinese student trying to learn English?

by Sam Walton Sr. Business Analyst

Embarking on leaning ESL? Congratulations! Learning English can be a great way to kick-start a lucrative career. And it can even more rewarding as you spend time in the US, experiencing exciting, transformative and life-changing things.

If you are wondering what to expect as you prepare yourself to start on the right foot, read on.

Whether you are in Asia or America, learning a foreign language can be a demanding task that requires you to be committed and dedicated. But it can be especially tricky for Chinese students. From entirely different alphabets to lack of opportunities to practice speaking skills, students in China face several problems when learning English.

Here’re the most common challenges Chinese students face while they are learning English.

·         Alphabets

The Chinese and English languages have different alphabets. While English uses the Roman or Latin alphabet, which has 26 letters, Chinese uses logograms to represent words. These logograms are literally thousands in number, pronounced very differently. When Chinese students want to learn English, they have to learn a completely new alphabet and a new way of using them to speak and write.

·         Pronunciation

Another problem Chinese students face while learning the English language is pronunciation. For example, Mandarin and other dialects do not share sounds that are similar to /r/ and /l/ in English. Because Chinese students cannot hear the difference between these two sounds, they have trouble saying them.

However, teachers can physically show students how each sound is made to help students train their ears and then be able to pronounce the respective sounds and words properly.

 

·         Rhythm

In the English language, the rhythm in speaking depends on the how each syllable is emphasized. For example, you would pronounce ‘Desert’ and ‘Dessert’ very differently. So, syllables may last different lengths of time. At the same time, the time between the differently stressed syllables remains constant.

On the other hand, Mandarin and Cantonese are not stress-timed but syllable-timed languages. Each syllable takes up almost the same amount of time.

·         Speaking Skills

English has almost become mandatory for Chinese students. But there are limited opportunities to practise language skills. So, Chinese students learning English need to take up an immersive learning course which will help them not only learn the language, but also the subtle differences. This will help you get easily integrated into the place where you will be using the language.

Now that you know about the most common challenges, isn’t it time for you to join a great English language program that can help you master the language?

If you are looking for English classes or ESL lesson plans for Chinese students or English programs for international students, visit Dongchen International Education or call (716) 861-3396 NOW!

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Created on Mar 20th 2020 09:35. Viewed 395 times.

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