When expressing temporal or logical sequences, English may make full use of inflections and function words to make its word order flexible, while Chinese, with the help of function words, arranges its word order according to certain rules of temporal or logical sequences.

1.3 The Use of Function Words: English and Chinese Employ Different Types of Function Words

English function words include the articles, prepositions, auxiliary verbs, coordinators and subordinators, While Chinese function words comprise particles, connectives, and prepositions. Each has its own features in the use of these words.

E.g. She was with a child. 她身边带着一个孩子。

She was with child. 她怀有身孕。

They are students of our school. 他们是本校的一部分学生。

They are the students of our school. 他们是本校的全体学生。

Chinese is rich in particles(助词), which can be classified into aspect particles(动态助词，如：着、了、过), structural particles（结构助词，如：的、地、得）, and emotional particles（语气助词，如：嘛、吗、吧、呢）. The frequent use of Chinese particles is a hard nut for foreign learners of Chinese.

E.g. 这回我可亲眼看见啦！（感叹语气）

This time I ve actually seen it for myself.

打吧，打不下去；跑吧，跑不了，敌人只好投降。

Unable to fight on or escape, the enemy was forced to surrender.

你呀，老这样下去可不行啊！（加重语气）

Look! You can t go on like this.

这也不能怪他，头一回嘛。 （答辩语气）

He is not to blame. After all, it was the first time that he had done it.

English has a large number of prepositions and prepositional phrases which are often in use, while Chinese has a few prepositions which are mostly “borrowed” from their corresponding verbs. A conversion of English prepositions into Chinese verbs is often necessary.

E.g. Peter drew his knife on the robber.

彼得拔刀向那个强盗砍去。

English frequently uses its various connectives, coordinating or subordinating, including conjunctive and relative pronounces or adverbs, such as who, whom, whom, whose, that, what, which, when, why, and how. Chinese has no such kind of conjunctives and relatives, and other connectives are not often used, expect in formal writing.

E.g. Practically all substances expand when heated and contract when cooled. 几乎所有的物质都是热胀冷缩的。

1.4 Intonation vs. Tone

English is an intonation language, while Chinese is a tone language.

One of the important features in modern Chinese is the predominance of disyllables