A Comparative Analysis Of Chinese And Korean Idioms And Teaching Strategies

Idioms are found in all languages and these individual phrases can reflect the many distinguishing features of a nation’s language. Idioms are a common phenomenon for native speakers and first language users. Many idioms have already become common words in daily life. Chinese and Korean idioms possess both similarities and differences in structure, etymology and expression. Chinese idioms frequently appear in the listening and reading sections of the Chinese Proficiency Test (HSK). Therefore, it is very important for Chinese language students, who want to speak Chinese as natives, to improve their knowledge and use of idioms. In Korea, specialized courses to teach idioms do not exist. The quality of idiom learning materials is quite low. Generally, teachers explain those phrases, which are occasionally encountered in the coursework, with a lack of planning and foresight. Different methodologies should be used to teach idioms to Korean students.Interviews and questionnaires were used to investigate and discover Korean students’ degrees of idiom understanding, biases, and difficulties. The objective of this paper is to conduct a comparative analysis of Chinese and Korean idioms, analyze Korean students’understanding of Chinese idioms and explore the difficulties that exist within the learning process.Conclusions suggest new strategies to teach idioms to Korean students. I hope this research will prove to be a reference for Chinese language education and Sino-Korean cross-cultural communication. And furthermore, to advance the learning of Chinese idioms for Korean students, thus allowing them to more thoroughly understand Chinese culture and improve their ability to communicate.