Research On The Errors Made In Using Time Class Adverb "Jiu" In The Chinese Language By International Students

Functional words in Chinese are considered to be very difficult for foreign studentsduring their learning process. The time class adverb "Jiu" is one of the typical examples. Theadverb “Jiu” is introduced to students at the beginning stage of study and it is frequently usedwith multiple meanings. In real teaching exercises, not only the primary learners feel thisword is confusing and difficult to master but also for those advanced learners. The misuse andmisinterpretation is common among students. There are indeed many research conducted onthe study of functional word “Jiu”. However, the study conducted on the usage of time classadverb “Jiu” is relatively inadequate. I performed the research on the teaching of time classadverb “Jiu” by combining theoretical concepts, current textbooks, and data from BeijingLanguage University HSK composition database. This thesis is based primarily on Chineselanguage itself and experiences gained form learning the second language, with the theory oferror analysis and real-life examples to analyze the learning strategy and using of the adverb“Jiu” for the learners. At the same time, I also estimated the extent of influence of theirmother tongue’s shift and over generalization in the studying process.I conducted the research in several aspects: Firstly, I referred to dictionaries andacademic research to classify the adverb “Jiu” with different sentences and meanings.Secondly, I summarized previous studies on this topic by using the content mainly from theinvestigation of Beijing Language University HSK composition database to furtherinvestigate the study the “Jiu” during the teaching of Chinese as a foreign language. Throughthe research, I realized that textbooks do cover many meanings of “Jiu”. Nonetheless, some ofthe important meanings are ignored; some disordered grammar, untypical examples, andpoorly organized practices do exist. In this study, I have included some solutions andsuggestions to the problems mentioned. How to teach this grammar point is particularly important in the real-life situation ofteaching and learning mandarin as a foreign language. In this thesis, I investigated theChinese verb “Jiu” using the comments from Beijing Language University HSK compositiondatabase, summarized the annotates made on time class verb “Jiu”, proposed suggestions tosolve the problems raised in the teaching probes. I further substantiated the research bycombining the research results from error analysis and the principles of second languageteaching methods. I believe that it would be appropriate for teachers to teach the usage of“Jiu” using real life scenarios.This thesis examined the usage of “Jiu” as a time class verb. I hope by my research, Icould make some contributions to the teaching of mandarin as well as inspire other talentedteachers to improve the teaching methods.