The way your first language shapes your writing in a second language is called L1 transfer. It is not a sign of low proficiency — it is a normal feature of how bilingual writing works, and it affects people at every level, including highly fluent writers. The patterns do not go away when your English becomes fluent. They shift from obvious grammatical errors to subtler habits that are harder to notice precisely because they are not technically wrong.
For Mandarin speakers writing professional English — and this applies to many people from Hong Kong and mainland China working in Western companies — the most common patterns are specific and learnable. Here are the ten that come up most often in workplace writing, along with the mechanism behind each one.
1. Omitted Articles
Mandarin does not have grammatical articles (a, an, the). Writers whose first language is Mandarin often omit them or use them inconsistently in English, particularly in headings, subject lines, and list items where the surrounding context does not force an article into focus.
Before: "Please review attached document and let me know if you have question."
After: "Please review the attached document and let me know if you have any questions."
The rule of thumb: when introducing a singular countable noun for the first time, use "a/an." When referring back to it, use "the." Plural nouns do not need an article unless you are referring to a specific group.
2. Uncountable Nouns Treated as Countable
Mandarin does not mark the countable/uncountable distinction the way English does. Several common uncountable nouns get treated as countable regularly.
Common ones:
- "informations" → "information"
- "feedbacks" → "feedback"
- "advices" → "advice"
- "knowledges" → "knowledge"
- "equipments" → "equipment"
Before: "I received some feedbacks from the team about your presentation."
After: "I received some feedback from the team about your presentation."
3. Topic-Prominent Sentence Structure
Mandarin is a topic-prominent language: sentences often begin by stating what the sentence is about, then say something about it. English is subject-prominent: the grammatical subject is required and typically comes first, followed by the verb.
This produces constructions where the topic appears at the start but the grammatical subject is unclear or missing.
Before: "This project, the timeline is very tight."
After: "The project timeline is very tight."
Before: "The report, I have already sent it."
After: "I've already sent the report."
4. Omitted Subject Pronouns
Mandarin allows subject pronouns to be dropped when the referent is clear from context. English requires an explicit subject in almost all sentences.
Before: "Reviewed the document. Found several issues. Will discuss tomorrow."
After: "I've reviewed the document. I found several issues and will discuss them tomorrow."
In formal documents and bullet-point lists, subject omission is acceptable in English. In email body text, it reads as telegraphic.
5. Aspect Over Tense
Mandarin marks aspectual distinctions — whether an action is completed, ongoing, or habitual — rather than tense distinctions tied to a specific time. Writers from Mandarin backgrounds sometimes underdifferentiate English tenses, particularly simple past versus present perfect.
Before: "I already sent the email yesterday."
After: "I sent the email yesterday." (simple past with a specific past time reference — correct)
Before: "Did you receive my email yet?"
After: "Have you received my email yet?" (present perfect for a past action with current relevance)
6. "Please Kindly" and Formulaic Politeness
Written Mandarin professional correspondence uses formal politeness phrases heavily. "Please kindly," "please do not hesitate to," and "I humbly request" are English approximations of these conventions that have become standard in Chinese business English but read as stiff or old-fashioned in Western professional contexts.
Before: "Please kindly review the attached file and provide your valued feedback at your earliest convenience."
After: "Could you review the attached and share your feedback when you get a chance?"
7. "Very" and Intensifier Stacking
Mandarin uses intensifiers in ways that map frequently onto English "very." English writing benefits from more varied and specific intensifiers — or none at all, since strong verbs and precise nouns often make them unnecessary.
Before: "This is a very very important issue that needs very urgent attention."
After: "This issue needs urgent attention." or "This is a critical issue."
8. Measure Words and Numeral Constructions
Mandarin uses measure words with all nouns. English has measure words too, but for many common nouns they are unnecessary and produce slightly unnatural phrasing.
Before: "I have sent two pieces of email to the client."
After: "I've sent two emails to the client."
9. "Give" Constructions from 给 (Gěi)
The Mandarin verb 给 functions as a causative and dative marker in ways that produce "give" constructions in English that can feel slightly awkward.
Before: "Please give the report a check before sending."
After: "Please check the report before sending."
(Note: "I will give the client a call later" is actually fine in informal English. The issue is with the construction when applied to objects rather than people.)
10. Politeness as Formality vs Warmth
A broader pattern: Mandarin professional writing signals respect primarily through formal register. English professional writing — particularly in Australian and British contexts — signals respect primarily through directness and clarity. Treating the other person as someone who can handle a clear, direct message without extensive framing is itself a form of respect.
When Mandarin transfer produces formal, heavily hedged English, the effect is often the opposite of respectful to an Australian reader. It reads as uncertain or distant rather than courteous.
How Local Tone Handles This
Local Tone's analysis flags article omissions, uncountable noun errors, topic-prominent constructions, and politeness-formality patterns common in Mandarin-influenced professional English. The pattern dashboard shows which of these habits appear most often in your writing and tracks whether they reduce over time.
For related reading, see the article on the politeness gap in Asian English and Korean to English: the "I think" problem.
Quick Reference: Mandarin Transfer Patterns
| Original phrasing | How a native reader interprets it | Improved version |
|---|---|---|
| "Please kindly review the attached file and provide your valued feedback at your earliest convenience." | Overly formal, possibly a template or non-native phrasing | "Could you review the attached and share your feedback this week?" |
| "I received some feedbacks from the team." | Grammar error — "feedbacks" is not a word | "I received some feedback from the team." |
| "This project, the timeline is very tight." | Awkward structure; sounds like a translation | "The project timeline is very tight." |
| "Reviewed the document. Found several issues." | Telegraphic; unclear who did this | "I reviewed the document and found several issues." |
| "Did you receive my email yet?" | Slight tense confusion; sounds slightly off | "Have you received my email yet?" |
| "I have sent two pieces of email to the client." | Unnatural measure word usage | "I've sent two emails to the client." |
In Practice
Wei is a product manager originally from Shanghai, now working for a software consultancy in Melbourne. He has been fluent in English for over ten years, but when he re-reads his weekly status emails he notices something: they sound formal and distant in a way that his Australian colleagues' emails do not. His manager once mentioned — gently — that his updates could be "a bit more direct." Looking back at a recent email, Wei spots the problem: "Please kindly be informed that the delivery of the module has been completed and the informations have been shared with stakeholders accordingly." Every pattern from the list is there — the "please kindly," the uncountable noun, the passive structure, the heavy formality. He rewrites it as: "The module is done — I've shared the details with the relevant stakeholders. Let me know if you have questions." His manager replies with a thumbs-up and nothing else. That is the response he was going for.
How to Self-Check Before You Send
- Search your draft for "please kindly" — if it appears, replace it with a direct request or remove the phrase entirely.
- Check every noun ending in "-s" that might be uncountable: feedback, advice, information, equipment, knowledge — none of these take a plural form in English.
- Read the first word of each sentence. If several sentences in a row start with a topic phrase rather than "I," "we," or a clear subject, restructure them.
- Look for dropped subject pronouns in the email body — if any sentence has no subject, add "I" or "we."
- Check your tense choices: if you are describing a completed past action with a specific time reference, use simple past; if the action has present relevance, use present perfect.
- Count the word "very" in the draft. Replace each instance with a specific adjective, a stronger verb, or nothing at all.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does L1 transfer ever go away entirely for Mandarin speakers writing English?
For most bilingual writers, the patterns do not disappear entirely — they become less frequent and less visible. With deliberate attention, a writer can reduce article omissions and uncountable noun errors to near zero. The deeper patterns, like topic-prominence and formal-register politeness, tend to persist longer because they are structural rather than lexical. The practical goal is not elimination but awareness: once you can recognise the pattern, you can catch it in a final read-through before sending. Over time that becomes automatic.
Is "please kindly" actually wrong, or just informal?
It is not ungrammatical, but it signals non-native phrasing very clearly to most Australian and British readers. "Please" and "kindly" are redundant together — each is already a politeness marker. The phrase has become a strong marker of Chinese business English, which means that native English readers in Western contexts mentally register it as translated. If your goal is to write in a way that reads as natural to an Australian or British colleague, "please kindly" is worth removing from your toolkit entirely. The replacement is almost always simpler: "Could you..." or "Please..." alone.
Why do these patterns persist even after years of writing in English professionally?
L1 transfer patterns are deeply embedded because they were formed when you were acquiring language — they are not conscious decisions. When you are focused on the content of a message, the automatic patterns from your first language fill in the structural gaps. Awareness and deliberate review are the main tools for catching them. Many writers find that reviewing their own writing in a different context — printing it out, reading it aloud, or running it through a tool that flags specific patterns — surfaces things they miss in normal editing. The patterns are not a sign of inadequate English; they are a sign of a brain that learned two languages.