Learner-friendly language in some ways: 01 (Prefixes)

I'm simplifying the issue here, of course, being selective with the examples I pluck out of such a dense maze, just to make Chinese less daunting to learn.

    There are strategies and tricks which can help make it not only less of a struggle but actually fun.  Yes, fun -- as those students who have been with me long enough and are, therefore, well drilled on how the language behaves (from the way I teach them to look at it) have proven by using them to good effect.

       Animals in English have different names for the male and female versions, and for their young, so that it's not obvious most of the time that they are related.

1. boar (/ stag), sow, piglet
2. bull, cow, calf
3. tom (/ gib), queen (/ molly), kitten
4. cob, pen, cygnet
5. dog, bitch, puppy
6. drake, duck (/ hen), duckling
7. stallion (/ gelding), mare (/ filly), colt
8. rooster, hen, chick

(NB:  8 is a lucky number for the Chinese, hence a list of 8.)

    As you can see from the above list (admittedly specially selected for my argument), only "duckling" is obviously related to the female parent "duck" (but not obvious if you're only given the male parent "drake").  Another grouse (haha, word play!) is that a female duck is also called a "hen", which is terribly confusing as it overlaps with "female chicken"; and a male pig is also called a "stag", which is more commonly understood as a male deer.

    In the Chinese language, one word is used for that particular category as a whole, e.g., dog, which is 狗 gǒu.  To distinguish male dog from female dog and from their young, prefixes are added: 

• 公 gōng (also = "grandfather" and "public")
• 母 mǔ (also = "mother")
• 小 xiǎo / small

    You can see from the list below how easy the Chinese versions are for the learner.

    Instead of three different, seemingly totally unrelated names in English (e.g., boar (/stag), sow, piglet), the Chinese equivalents instantly show up their connection with each other: all in the same category/family (pig here); whether male or female or child.

• 猪 zhū / pig (the category)
• 公猪 gōng zhū / male pig
• 母猪 mǔ zhū / female pig
• 小猪 xiǎo zhū / little pig

And for "bull, cow, calf", the Chinese equivalents are:

• 牛 niú / cattle (the category)
• 公牛 gōng niú
• 母牛 mǔ niú
• 小牛 xiǎo niú

    For passive recognition, the learner can see, at one quick glance, that all three are in the same family / group (which is not obvious at all in the English version).

    For active production, it's also easier for the learner as s/he only has to remember the one overall name for the group (e.g., 牛 niú for cattle, which can be used elsewhere in other combinations -- more in another blog), plus the three prefixes.  This applies for all the animals across the board -- without doing an in-depth sampling, I'd say 99.9% of the time (rules, as I keep telling my students, are never 100% rules).

    It's very simply "1 + 3".  (This summary sentence is specially for Valerio the maths professor who likes to, and does, think in numbers and formulas/formulae, which is also the way I teach my students for language, seeing patterns wherever possible.)

    So, the score is 1 : 0 (Chinese : English) for being learner-friendly.  Not so hard after all, right?

PS:  It is true that English has prefixes that helpfully guide the reader in the right direction as well, but that will have to be addressed in another blog for various reasons (not the focus here -- don't want to distract the reader from the point I'm trying to make; will make this blog too long).