What are the differences between English and Chinese in terms of vocabulary?

(I) Asymmetry between English and Chinese Vocabularies

Certain things or concepts are often found in one culture but not in another, which creates asymmetry in the vocabularies of different cultures. For example, there is a proverb in Chinese that says, "Practice three volts in the summer and three nines in the winter," which is meant to motivate people to keep on exercising. While we might use the English word "dog days" for "three ambushes," it's hard to find a word in English that has the same figurative meaning as "dog days" for "thirty-nine days.

The English language has a strong cultural connotation. cowboy and hippie (or hippy) do not have a Chinese equivalent because they are unique to American society. cowboy is associated with the early development of the western region of the United States, and the legends about them always have a strong romanticism and legendary color. There are many such words in Chinese, such as "cowboy", "shepherd", and "horse-herder", but these are all figures in idyllic pastoral songs. Although we borrowed the word "cowboy" from Hong Kong and Guangdong, and it has become the mainstream and classic translation, the heroic and legendary style of the pioneers in the American westward movement inherited from the English "cowboy" has not been conveyed, but rather added a little bit of flirtation with ordinary people; for example, "wage-earner" is a clear proof. In addition, in Chinese, people translate hippie as "希比士" or "希比派", which in fact does not reflect the style of those American youths in the 1960s whom the Chinese found to be behaving oddly. Some are also translated as "hippies", but it is easy to misunderstand, because not all of those young people were "hippies", and many of them took social issues seriously and harbored some kind of discontent with society, even though their lifestyles were different: they tended to grow their hair long, wore strange clothes, and even behaved decadently and got into drug addiction, and so on.

So the same Chinese culture that we know so well as "yin," "yang," "taiji," "qigong," and "bagua" is nothing more than a sealed book in the eyes of English-speaking people, with a single hanyu pinyin, "yin," "yang," "taiji," "qigong," or "bagua" in it.

(II) The phenomenon of inequivalence between English vocabulary and Chinese vocabulary

In different cultural backgrounds, there is often an understanding of the ****same things and phenomena, but after all, they are in different cultural circles, so the vocabulary that seems to be almost the same in fact, often due to the cultural differences and the formation of a variety of variations (variation) and unequal (non-equivalence) phenomenon, which is the result of cultural differences. Equivalence) phenomenon. Here are some examples:

Chinese people often use the word "lover" when they introduce their loved ones, and foreigners are always surprised. Because "lover" in English means "lover" or "mistress". Foreigners do not understand how the Chinese, who have always been conservative and prudent on such issues, can openly declare that they have other hidden feelings. In fact, the English equivalent of the Chinese word "lover" would be: husband or wife; fiance or fiancee.

Likewise, in English, the wife of the president of the United States and the wife of the governor are often called First Lady, and there is a similar "First Lady" in Chinese. However, in traditional Chinese culture, "first lady" refers to a man's married spouse or original spouse, while the "first" in "first lady" in English only expresses a special reference to and respect for the president's or governor's wife.

In Chinese, we tend to equate "politician" with "politician" in English. In fact, in American English, the word "politician" often has a very strong pejorative coloring, which can easily cause other people's contempt. It refers to a person who engages in political maneuvering for personal gain. The word also has the meaning of "shrewd and smooth person" (smooth-operator), which refers to a person who does things or speaks with full confidence and sophistication.

The word "statesman" in Chinese is equivalent to the word "statesman" in English; in both British and American English, statesman means a wise man who is good at running a country; people usually refer to a prestigious senior government official as a statesman; and "politician" in Chinese means about the same thing as "politician" or "politico".

Another example is that the Chinese word "intellectual" and the English word "intellectual" have different meanings in the respective cultural contexts of China and the United States. In China, "intellectual" generally includes university teachers, college students, and doctors, engineers, translators and other university-educated people. But in the United States and Europe, intellectual only includes university professors and other people with high academic status, but not ordinary college students, so the scope of the people referred to by this word is much smaller. In addition, there are other differences. In the United States intellectual is not always a positive word, sometimes used in a derogatory sense.

Then again, the Chinese word "cadre" is often translated into English as "cadre", but the English word "cadre" is not quite the same as the Chinese word "cadre". First of all, cadre is not a common word, and many English speakers do not know what it means. Even those who do recognize it pronounce it differently when they speak of it -- there are three or four ways of pronouncing it. Therefore, some people have suggested replacing cadre with official (官员，行政人员，高级职员); functionary (机关工作人员，官员); administrator (行政官员), etc. But none of these words is exactly the same as the Chinese word "cadre" because its counterpart is simply "the general public" (grassroots).

(C) The phenomenon of plausible deniability of English and Chinese vocabularies

There are many synthetic words in English, the meaning of which is not a synthesis of the Chinese meanings of the constituent words, and it is not to be taken for granted. The following are some examples of this phenomenon (speciosity) in the English and Chinese languages.

1, refers to "premises", "institutions" and other words: fire company ≠ arson company, on the contrary, its meaning is "fire department". high school ≠ higher school, refers to the United States of America's high school; in the United Kingdom, secondary school is called secondary school. service station ≠ service station, is a place to give gas to the car and simple repairs. rest room ≠ service station, is a place to give gas to the car and simple repairs. service station ≠ service station, a place where cars are filled up with gas and simple repairs are made. rest room ≠ rest room, in American English, a rest room is a room in a theater, a large store, or a large building with toilets, washing facilities, etc., for the use of customers, employees, etc. It is a euphemism for a bathroom or toilet. It is a euphemism for a bathroom or toilet.

2. Words that refer to "people" or "things": French window ≠ French window, meaning "floor-to-ceiling window"; Indian Summer ≠ Indian summer, meaning "little sunny spring"; busboy ≠ bus conductor or driver on a bus; in fact, busboy has nothing to do with buses, but refers to the person who cleans the dishes and wipes the tables in a restaurant; busboy is the person who cleans the dishes and wipes the tables in a restaurant. It refers to a handyman who cleans dishes and wipes tables in a restaurant. goldbrick ≠ goldbrick, which is not a word used to praise a person, but is American English slang for a person who avoids work, especially a lazy soldier or a slacker. busybody ≠ busybody, which is equivalent to the Chinese word for "meddling person". From the composition of the words, people may think that goldbrick and busybody are positive words, but in fact they have more or less derogatory meanings.

3. Idioms, proverbs, idioms: see you ≠ see you, on the contrary, means "goodbye". see John ≠ visit John, in fact, is an idiom, meaning "go to the bathroom", with real life or their own side of the person called "John" (John) has no relationship. Similarly, let George do it ≠ to make George do it, which means "let someone else do it" and has nothing to do with the person named "George" in real life or around you. To make one's hair stand on end: the former is used when one is very angry at seeing or hearing some kind of atrocity; the latter is used when one is very afraid of seeing or hearing something terrible, which is equivalent to "creepy". In English, there is the phrase to bristle with anger, which means "to be so angry that one's hairs stand on end", but it is mostly used for animals, not for people, unless it is used as a metaphor. To eat one's own words ≠ to eat one's own words. the former means not to keep one's word, not to do what one has promised; the latter means to take back one's own words, which is usually used to force others to take back what they have said, so as to make them lose face. to blow one's own horn (or trumpet) ≠ to blow one's own horn. the former is an idiomatic expression that means to blow one's own horn, which is usually used for animals, but not for people, unless used as a metaphor. The former is an idiom for "blowing one's own horn", which is generally used to describe someone showing off his or her accomplishments, skills, intelligence, etc., much like the Chinese phrase "Lao Wang sells his melon and boasts about himself". The Chinese phrase "each blowing his own trumpet, each singing his own tune" indicates that two or more people are doing their own thing or insisting on their own views, which cannot be harmonized, and is similar to the English phrase "each doing his own thing".

(4) The phenomenon of different paths of English and Chinese vocabularies

In the process of conquering and transforming nature, people in different cultures make use of things and objects familiar to each other to express their similar understandings and knowledge of the world and life. The following are some of the expressions in English and Chinese that use different words but have similar meanings:

1. Phrase phrases: "goose bumps" in Chinese, "goose flesh" in English; "talk horse" in Chinese, "talk horse" in English; "a lion in the way" in Chinese; "a drowned chicken" in English; and "a drowned chicken" in Chinese, "a drowned chicken" in English. In Chinese, "落汤鸡" is "a drowning rat"; in Chinese, "害群之马" is "black sheep"; in Chinese, "as timid as a mouse" is "as timid as a hare"; in Chinese, "狐假虎威" is "an ass in a lion's skin"; and in Chinese, "杀鸡用牛刀" is "break a fly upon the wheel" in English. break a fly upon the wheel".

2. Proverbs: In Chinese, there is "爱屋及乌", and in English, there is a similar expression "Love me, love my dog"; in Chinese, there is "Speak of Cao Cao, and Cao Cao arrives", and in English, there is a similar expression "Talk of the devil, and he'll appear"; in Chinese, there is "There is no tiger in the mountains, and the monkeys call themselves the king", and in English, there is "There is no tiger in the mountains, and the monkeys call themselves the king"; in Chinese, there is "There is no tiger in the mountains, and the monkeys call themselves the king". In Chinese, there is "There is no tiger in the mountains, the monkey is king"; in English, there is "Among the blind, the one-eyed man is king"; in Chinese, there is "Snipes and mussels fight, the fisherman gets the benefit"; in English, there is "Two dogs strive for a bone, and a third runs away with it".

In English, there is a similar expression "Two dogs strive for a bone, and a third runs away with it".

Comparing the cultural differences between Chinese and English in the linguistic context is also a big topic, which involves the knowledge of etymology, word formation, semantics, pragmatics, folklore and many other fields. This paper just summarizes some obvious features of English and Chinese vocabularies. In fact, from the perspective of vocabulary alone, we can also compare the changes of words in different contexts and the problems of expanding and narrowing the meanings of words in the process of language development and so on. But in the usual language learning, pay attention to the vocabulary from the point of view of the examination of some cultural connotations is not lost as a good method and try.