Why Chinese thinking is different to English

I’ve been speaking Chinese for 7 years and running this Chinese language school for 4 years.

The biggest thing that stops 老外 from sounding natural is that they don’t “think” like a Chinese.

Maybe you’ve memorised 5000 words and finished all the HSK levels, but damn you all still sound like ChatGPT when you talk…

You just don’t have that Chinese feel in your speech. But let’s change that for the better with this article.

The truth is there are some habits in Chinese, which sound illogical in English, and that’s why you never pick up on them. They don’t click in your brain.

My aim is to make you pick it up at least one of these patterns by the end of this article!


1. Stating the obvious

Take a look at how Chinese translates these English phrases:

I’m hungry —> 我肚子很饿 “my stomach is very hungry”
I'm sad ——> 我心里很难过 “in my heart I’m sad”
He is tall ——> 他个子很高 “ his height is very tall”
He is stingy ——> 花钱小气 “ spending money very stingy”
To clean up ——→ 打扫卫生 “ to clean hygiene”

As you can see the LITERAL translation of the Chinese equivalent gives way more information than the English version.

It almost seems ridiculous to say “my stomach is hungry” of course your stomach is hungry! Where else in your body would be hungry?

Or why do we have to elaborate and say you’re sad inside your ❤️? “心里“


I don’t have an exact answer to how this conundrum came about in the Chinese language, but I do have a solution to remembering how to use it yourself.

The way to prompt yourself to think in this Chinese pattern is to ask yourself.


什么 : what?

怎么样：how is it?

什么 asks for what exactly you’re making some comment about
怎么样 asks for your comment or appraisal of this topic.

Example of how this applies to the sentences above:

什么？ what?：我肚子 my stomach

怎么样？How is it? ：很饿 very hungry

什么？ what?: 我的个子 my height

怎么样？ how is it?: 很高 very tall


So the next time you come across a sentence which you feel is unnecessarily obvious in Chinese, try to dissect it and see how it fits this prompt!


That’s it for this month! By the way, if you want more hands-on, 1-to-1 practice applying these thinking patterns to your Chinese, we do this in our speaking sessions!

We have a media platform filled with tons of these thinking patterns, with examples taken from film excerpts, commercials and vlogs in Chinese, with interactive exercises for you to test them out and then apply them to real-life speaking sessions with your teacher!

To find out more about how to join our media platform + speaking sessions, check out our website at sinosphere.co.uk