Brief Notes on Word Order
in Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese

(For the romanisation of Chinese and Japanese, see Transliteration. To understand the writing systems of CJV, see Writing Systems.)

 

In considering the Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese versions of Harry Potter, there are some differences in word order that need to be noted.

1. Prepositions. Prepositions or their equivalents come before the noun in English, Chinese, and Vietnamese, but after the noun in Japanese. Mongolian uses case endings. An example:

English: From London
Chinese: Cóng Lún-dūn
Japanese: Rondon kara
Vietnamese: từ Luân Đôn
Mongolian: London(g)oos

(Note: other particles, such as the subject marker ga, the object marker o, and the possessive marker no also come after the noun in Japanese and Korean. These are largely equivalent to case endings in Mongolian.)

 

2. Adjectives and possessive expressions come before the noun in English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Mongolian, but after the noun in Vietnamese. An example:

English: Black dragon
Chinese: Heī lóng
Japanese: Kuroi doragon
Mongolian: Khar luu
Vietnamese: Rồng đen


English: Harry's wand
Chinese: Hālì de mózhàng
Japanese: Harii no tsue
Mongolian: Kharigiin savaa (Khari is in genitive or possessive case)
Vietnamese: cây đữa phép của Harry ("cây" is a 'counter' - see 5 below).

 

3. The general word order in English, Chinese, and Vietnamese is Subject-Verb-Object (SVO). In Japanese, Korean, and Mongolian it is SOV - i.e., the verb comes at the end of the sentence. An example:

English: Harry eats rice (= 'a meal')
Chinese: Hālì chī fàn
Vietnamese: Harry ăn cơm
Japanese: Harii wa go-han o tabemasu
Mongolian: Kharii khool idne

 

4. Relative clauses (i.e., short sentences modifying nouns) come after the noun in English and Vietnamese, but before the noun in Japanese and Chinese. An example:

English: the boy who bought a wand
Chinese: mǎi mózhàng de nán-hái (mǎi = 'buy', mózhàng = 'wand') A connecting particle de is placed between the clause and the word nán-hái 'boy'.
Japanese: tsue o katta otoko no ko (tsue o = 'wand + object particle', katta = 'bought')
Mongolian: savaa avsan khuu (savaa = 'wand', avsan = 'bought')
Vietnamese: cậu bé mà mua một cây đữa phép ("mà" = 'who', "mua" = 'buy', "một" = 'one', "cây" is a counter, refer to 5 below, "đữa phép" = 'wand').

 

5. All of the CJV languages have parts of speech known as 'classifiers', 'counters', or 'measure words'. These are like the 'loaf', 'cake', and 'head' in expressions like 'a loaf of bread', 'a cake of soap', 'three head of cattle', but are used much more extensively than in English. Virtually every noun can take a counter in CJV. They are most prevalent in Vietnamese but are also widely used in Chinese and Japanese, especially when counting things. To take an example that translates easily into English (note the word order):

English: one sheet of paper / a sheet of paper
Chinese: yī zhāng zhǐ (yī = 'one', zhāng = 'sheet', zhǐ = 'paper')
Japanese: kami ichi mai (kami = 'paper', ichi = 'one', mai = 'sheet'.) The order can also be reversed to 'ichi mai no kami'.
Vietnamese: một tờ giấy ("một" = 'one', "tờ" = 'sheet', "giấy" = 'paper').

Mongolian is like English in its use of counters: they exist but are not obligatory in the way they are in the CJV languages.