A Semantic Contrastive Analysis Of EAT Between Chinese And English And Its Application In Teaching Chinese As A Second Language

EAT is a basic verb which express a common action, besides, EAT is also a high-frequent verb both in Chinese and English. Eat is a polysemant both in Chinese and in English and their original meaning are equal, the other meanings are extended from original meaning, but the meanings are not one-to-one correspondence between them, Chinese CHI’s sense is more than English EAT’s. The semantic meaning of EAT both in Modern Chinese and Modern English are divided into two categories:the category of action and the category of resort, to some degree, their semantic meaning extend process are the same. There are differences between CHI plus objects and EAT plus objects, those objects influence the sense of EAT. All above are caused by the differences of thinking mode between Western and Eastern and language form between Chinese and English. Besides, both in Chinese and English have abundant EAT-words, in some certain, their meanings are corresponding. In the process of learning Chinese vocabulary, foreign students usually grasp semantic of words but can not use them correctly and properly in the communication. Thus, it is necessary that explain semantic in the particular context.