Comment by dgoodell
3 days ago
Every single example given under “In Chinese, affirmation is often compiled through negation:” sounds completely natural to me, as a midwestern American English speaker.
However the direct affirmations are also acceptable. Maybe the difference is more that both are pretty acceptable in English, but that is less true for Chinese. Or at least the version he speaks.
when the guy is making sentences like "affirmation is often compiled through negation" you know hes just trying to sound clever. the entire premise of the article is bunk, we DO use these patterns in English. He also treats (in that wide eyed western admiration for the orient) the Chinese like a simple monoculture where everyone has the same speech patterns.