Chinese-ordered English (COE) is the use of English words to represent the meaning of Chinese phrases and sentences that maintains the word order (syntax) of the original Chinese.
COE was conceived as a technique by the Confucius Institute at Michigan State University [1] to help English speakers learn Mandarin Chinese. COE allows English speakers with no or little knowledge of Chinese to discover the similarities and differences between English and Chinese grammar and syntax. The similarities between English and Chinese (both being analytic languages with canonical subject-verb-object word order) are sufficient for most COE phrases and sentences to be understood by English speakers with little or no knowledge of Chinese, with differences between English grammar and Chinese grammar also being readily apparent.
For teaching purposes, COE is described to students as "the Chinese way" as in "How would we say 'Yesterday I went to the park with my friend' the Chinese way"? This is opposed to saying (or writing) something "in Chinese" which has all of the words in Chinese, none in English.
Contents |
Here is an example of a Chinese sentence, Pinyin, COE and English:
The COE above ("Yesterday I with my friend go park.") shows that Chinese (a) has no past tense, (b) keeps the preposition phrase "with my friend") next to the subject of the sentence (which it modifies), and (c) has no definite article equivalent to "the" in English. Other examples of COE can be found in the "literal translations" from Chinese to English provided in Chinese grammar.
Another example of COE that English-speaking readers should have no trouble understanding:
“But Grandmother! You de (possessive) ear so big” Little Red Riding Hood towards bed walk to. “Dear, this way good hear you speak” wolf answer. “But Grandmother! You de eye so big” Little Red Riding Hood say. “Dear, this way good see you” wolf answer. “But Grandmother! You de tooth so big” Little Red Riding Hood de voice somewhat quiver. “Dear, this way good eat you”. Wolf roar. He from bed in leap, begin chase little girl.
The preceding example shows that Chinese has no plural form and does not always express grammatical subjects and copulas.
The following example of COE is taken from a news article of August 24, 2006.
Locate at JiLin province Jilin city border in de (possessive) Songhua River branch Mengliu River recently happen chemical pollution incident. Through JiLin city government emergency treatment, so far pollution already get control. Shonghua river in no test out feature pollutant. Through JiLi city Environment Protection Bureau staff on-spot examination, find part water appear red, and accompany small amount bubble. Incident happen after, national Environment Protection Bureau、JiLi province government and provincial Environment Protection Bureau relevant leaders on-spot direct monitor prevention control work. JiLi city Environment Protection Bureau with thousands min (measure word) local police、fireman day night fight, at from Mengliu river enter Shonghua river spot 8 kilometer place build one dao (measure word) interception dam and two dao (measure word) activated carbon absorption dam. Now, pollution area through absorption dam absorption after already enter Shonghua River, dam under water appear no color, no test out feature pollutant. According to understanding, incident pollution reason already basically investigate clear, by JiLi Changbai Mountain Chemical Limited Corp. towards Mengliu River in deliberately release chemical waste water cause.
The well-known phrase 好好学习，天天向上 ("study hard, improve every day") is often literally translated by Chinese speakers as "good good study, day day up".
For teaching Chinese to English speakers, COE can be used along with a gradual replacement of English words with their Chinese equivalents (starting with the highest frequency words) so that the texts students read gradually change ("morph") from COE to Chinese as students' knowledge of Chinese vocabulary increases.