A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH
AND VIETNAMESE
Abstract
Prepositions are words used to connect nouns or noun structures to other
structures in a sentence. They exist in both English and Vietnamese language
systems. However, prepositions have different characteristics and usage in each
language. The use of prepositions may cause lots of trouble for Vietnamese people
when learning English and vice versa. Therefore, this paper aims at analyzing
English and Vietnamese prepositions in a contrastive view, especially in showing
direction and location so that leaner's can find it easier to learn them. This paper
also supplies some implications for teaching prepositions which can be useful for
those who teaching English or Vietnamese. Through these implications, I hope that
they can help teachers know how to help students use prepositions correctly and
appropriately.
Literature Review
Prepositions in English
Definition
According to Oxford Advanced Learner's dictionary, a preposition "is a word or
group of words used before a noun or pronoun to show place, position, time or
method". Another definition is that a preposition "may be defined as connecting
word showing the relation of a noun or a noun substitute to some other words in the
sentence (the squirrel in the tree; the preposition in shows the relationship between
the squirrel and the tree.)" ("Prepositions: definition and usage", n.d). From these
definitions, we can come to a conclusion about the function of a preposition which is
it is used to connect nouns and noun structures with other structures in a sentence.
Prepositions that we often use in everyday life are: with, at, by, to, in, for, from, of,
on. It is estimated that these prepositions make up for ninety percent of preposition
usage.
The part following a preposition is called its object. The object of a preposition
can be a noun, a pronoun, a gerund or a noun clause. For example, we have:
a noun: We gave a present to our secretaries.
a pronoun: We gave a present to them.
a gerund: We thought about giving a present to them.
a noun clause: We thought about giving a present to whoever worked for us.
(Lougheed, n.d)
Form
Prepositions are often in one-word form; however, there are also other
prepositions with more than one word. They are made up with two or three words.
For example, we have on behalf of, in front of, in accordance with, in line with, in
relation to and so on. Another form is called prepositional phrase. Prepositional
phrases are groups of words that begin with a preposition and end with a noun or
pronoun. Some phrases are used commonly and in a number of situations such as
"acting as an adjective or an adverb, locating something in time and space,
modifying a noun, or telling when or where or under what conditions something
happened." ("Prepositions: Locator in time and place", n.d). Examples of these
prepositional phrases are out of work, at any rate, by means of, in person, under
orders, from now on and so forth. Besides, there are some called marginal
prepositions which are verbal in forms, such as concerning, considering, including,
pending and more.
Usage
Prepositions are used with a lot of functions including time, location, manner,
means, quantity, purpose, and state or condition. Regarding to prepositions of time,
there are some prepositions like at, on, in, from, since, for, during, to, till/until, after,
afterwards, by.before and so forth. For example, we have: at six o'clock, on Monday
or in the evening. Another usage of prepositions is to show location. Some belong to
this category are in,at,on,next to,beside, behind,in front of,opposite,near,on top
of,under,above and so on. For example, Jone lives at 55 Boretz Road in Durham,
She lives in Durham or Mary is sitting next to me. Prepositions of movement include:
from,to,at,into,out of,towards,on,onto,across,through,around,along,up. For instance,
he ran out of the room or Mary run towards the walls. Other usages are listed
below.
Means or agent:
by: He was hit by a ball.
from: His success results from careful planning .
in: He takes pleasure in it.
on: They live on bread and water.
with: He chased the mongoose with a stick.
Manner:
by: By doing it yourself
in: He left in confusion.
like: He looks like a hero.
on: I swear it on my word of honor.
with: He ate it with a fork.
State or condition:
at: My friend is at work.
by: They are by themselves
in: He is in a state of confusion
on: He is on duty (scheduled to work).
for: I mistook you for someone else.
as: I see her as a good person
. Quantity or mesure:
for: We drove for twenty miles.
by: We bought them by the kilo
Purpose:
for: He bought it for an emergency.
She went to the city for sightseeing.
He loved her for her thoughtfulness.
("Prepositions: definition and usage", n.d)
Vietnamese Prepositions
Definition
Like English, Vietnamese also has a category of word which is similar to
prepositions. We may call this category Vietnamese equivalent of English
preposition. To make it simple, some people prefer to use the name preposition.
Nevertheless, the notion preposition in Vietnamese is a quite complicated issue
because some linguists have claimed that prepositions do not exist in Vietnamese.
Yet, according to Tuc (2003), "although the distinction between prepositions and
serial verbs in Vietnamese is not always clear-cut, Vietnamese prepositions do exist"
(p.69). In his book, he also gave many examples to prove his opinion. Moreover,
nowadays, in many books of teaching Vietnamese for foreigners, the name
preposition is often used. Therefore, to be convenient, the name Vietnamese
preposition is used for equivalent of English preposition in Vietnamese in this paper.
Types of prepositions in Vietnamese
According to Tran (2007) there are two main types of preposition in Vietnamese:
prepositions of time and location. In addition, there are some other prepositions
called miscellaneous ones. Prepositions of time are vào (in, on, at), trong or suốt
(during), trước (before), sau (after), kể từ khi (since) and cho tới khi
(until). In terms of prepositions of location, there are trên (on, above, over), trong
(in, inside), chung quanh (around), bên phải (on the right of), cạnh (next to)
and so on. Finally, miscellaneous prepositions conclude cho (for), với (with), về
(about), nhề (thanks to), bởi (by) and so forth.
Here are some examples about how these prepositions are used in sentences.
Their usage in Vietnamese is similar to in English.
Time:
Tôi thưềng dáºy vào sáu giề sáng (I usually get up at six am)
Trong bữa tiệc cô ấy không nói gì cả. (She said nothing during the
party)
Location:
Bạn tôi sống ở Sài Gòn (My friend lives in Saigon)
Viện bảo tàng nằm bên phải tiệm sách cÅ© (The museum is located
on the right of the used bookstore)
Miscellaneous:
Lại Ä‘ây ngồi vá»›i tôi! (Come and sit with me)
Nhá»› mua hoa cho tôi nhé. (Remember to buy flowers for me, OK?)
āối vá»›i tôi, chuyện Ä‘ó không quan trềng (That issue doesn't matter
to me)
(Tran, 2007)
Contrast between English and Vietnamese prepositions
The notion preposition is quite an interesting issue. There may be so many
things to say if we compare prepositions in English with those in Vietnamese in a
large scale. Nonetheless, within this paper, I only make a contrast between English
and Vietnamese prepositions in two aspects: prepositions of movement with
directional verbs and locative prepositions because they often cause problems for
Vietnamese people when learning English and vice versa.
Prepositions of movement with directional verbs
The first difference between English and Vietnamese prepositions is related to
directional verbs. In English, directional verbs like come, go and arrive cannot take
direct objects. This means they must have a preposition (or a prepositional phrase),
bare particle or deictic verbial ("bare noun phrase adverb"). Since prepositions are
being discussed in this paper, the examples with bare particle and deictic verbial are
not mentioned. Here are the examples of directional verbs with prepositions
Sally has gone to New York.
Catrin will come to Sheffield next month.
They arrived at the airport.
("Vietnamese online grammar",n.d)
In Vietnamese, by contrast, there is no need to use prepositions with these
directional verbs because these verbs can take direct objects by themselves. We
have these examples:
Tuần trÆ°á»›c cô Ä‘i Luân āôn (Last week she went to London)
Bao giề cô ấy định sang Việt Nam? (When does she intend to come
to Vietnam?)
Máy.bay xuống phi-trừơng Liên-khang. (The plane landed at Lien khang
airport)
("Vietnamese online grammar",n.d)
Actually, in Vietnamese, there is no preposition which is similar to preposition
"to" in English. The verb đến (reach, arrive at) is used instead as the following
examples:
Tôi không có thềi giề Ä‘i (đến) bÆ°u Ä‘iện
I don't have time to go to the post-office
Locative prepositions
In English, space prepositions state the location of an object without paying
attention to the position of the speakers. For example, English people often say: "the
plane is "in" the sky, the child is playing "in" the kitchen, cars run "in" the street".
(McCarty, Pérez, Torres-Guzman, To, & Watahomigie, 2004, p. 150). On the
contrary, in Vietnamese, people tend to consider the position of the speakers. They
say: máy bay ở trên trềi (the plane is above him or her), đứa trẻ Ä‘ang
chÆ¡i trong nhà bếp (the child is inside the kitchen), những chiếc xe hÆ¡i
chạy ngoài đưềng (cars are outside). Therefore, preposition in can be
translated three ways into Vietnamese with three different meanings: trên, trong,
ngoài.
In addition, Tran (2010) mentioned several differences between English and
Vietnamese prepositions in terms of semantics and pragmatics. First, when
describing the higher position, they take the contact meaning between trajector
(đối tượng định vị) and landmark (đối tượng qui chiếu) into
consideration.For example, they distinguish the meaning of on, above and over.
Meanwhile, Vietnamese people almost do not pay attention to this aspect. They just
use the only word trên. Second, when talking about the relation between above
(trên) and under (dÆ°á»›i), English people are always aware of whether or not
trajector (đối tượng định vị) is in the vertical reference (vùng quy
chiếu thẳng đứng) of the landmark's (đối tượng qui chiếu) area.
That is the reason why they have these words: above / over / on and under / below
/ beneath. In contrast, Vietnamese people only devide the space into two part
"above/under" (trên/dÆ°á»›i).To indicate the middle position, English has in the
middle of / between (for 2 objects) and among (for 3 objects and more) while
Vietnamese use the word giữa for all these cases. Examples of this kind are
summarized in the table below.
Notion
English prepositions
Vietnamese prepositions
TRONG
in, inside
trong
NGOÀI
out, outside, out of
ngoài
TRÊN
on, upon,above,on top of, over,atop
Trên
DƯỚI
under, underneath, beneath, below
dÆ°á»›i
TRƯỚC
before,in front of, ahead of, preceding
trÆ°á»›c
SAU
behind, following, at the back of (br), in the back of (ame)
Sau
BÊN
by, near, next to, close to, beside, alongside, to the right/left
bên, cạnh, sát, gần, kề, bên phải, bên trái
GIá»®A
within, among, between, in the middle of, in the midst of
giữa
(Tran, 2010)
Implications for teaching
After having contrasted English and Vietnamese prepositions in two aspects as
above, I would like to mention the implications for teaching English at high school in
our country.
Since learners tend to translate everything into their mother tongue, teachers
should be very careful when teaching English, especially prepositions. They need to
realize that there is no exact one-to-one translation from English to Vietnamese and
vice versa. Referring to the discussion "prepositions with directional verbs", we know
that when translating a sentence from English to Vietnamese or Vietnamese to
English, sometimes we may add or omit the prepositions. For instance, we may not
use preposition "to" with directional verbs in Vietnamese. Moreover, as discussed in
the section Locative prepositions above, we can realize that a Vietnamese
preposition may have several prepositions which are equivalent to them in English.
Therefore, teachers should ask learners to take notice of this issue and know when
to use the most appropriate preposition. In sum, to make sure the exact preposition
is used, learners should observe how a preposition is used in a certain context. They
should not translate directly using prepositions in their language since prepositions
can be used differently in different language.
Moreover, the difference between Vietnamese and English prepositions is mainly
due to semantics and the notion of reference (quan niệm quy chiếu), so it is
vital that teachers have enough knowledge of these fields to explain to students
completely. Culture difference and the habit of using prepositions in each language
are also the things that teachers should bear in mind. If teachers are very careful
about these things, students may reduce making mistakes when using prepositions.
Conclusion
In conclusion, preposition is an interesting category in linguistics. There are so
many things to discuss about preposition. However, sometimes learners may feel
confused about how to use prepositions correctly, especially when Vietnamese
prepositions have something different from English prepositions. That is the reason
why learners often make mistakes when dealing with prepositions. A contrastive
analysis in this area is necessary and important because it shows difference between
English and Vietnamese prepositions in relation to direction and location. Directional
and locative prepositions are the ones that often causes trouble to students more
than other types. After having contrasted them, we can see that English prepositions
are more complex than those in Vietnamese. Moreover, the research also suggest
some implications for teaching prepositions in Vietnamese high school, so I hope
that this research paper will be a piece of useful referent material for those who are
interested in teaching a language aspect, particularly preposition.