Chinese Verbal Quantifiers And The Equivalent In Japanese And Teaching Strategy

Quantifier is a unit of measuring people, things and action. There are quantifiers both in Chinese and Japanese.Chinese belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family, the quantifier system of the Sino-Tibetan language family is mature. Chinese quantifiers have the characteristics of “many” and “mandatory”, which become one of the symbols that differ from other languages. In 1990 s, with the breakthrough against traditional ideas and the introduction of new theories and research methods, the quantifier study gradually rose. Among them, there are lots of study on Chinese substantival quantifiers, because the substantival quantifiers have a large number and a complex classification. By comparison, the verbal quantifiers are fewer and considered single-signification, which led to being ignored.Most Japanese quantifiers are from ancient Chinese. Although the Japanese quantifiers were widely and profoundly influenced by Chinese, during the long-term development, they formed their own independent system. There are numerous paper about the study on comparison of Chinese and Japanese quantifiers, but people only focused on the comparison of the substantival quantifiers and neglected the verbal quantifiers. In the following research, we found that there is no corresponding concept of Chinese “verbal quantifier” in Japanese, which resulted in the ignorance of the study on comparison of Chinese and Japanese quantifier application. Less quantity, scattered distribution, weak independence are the main reasons for no verbal quantifier concept in Japanese. Although there is no verbal quantifier concept, Japanese has similar application.Through investigation, we found that the significance of the verbal quantifiers teaching has not been highlighted in Chinese textbooks compilation and practical teaching activities. Teachers’ emphasis on verbal quantifiers is not enough, they explain the verbal quantifiers blindly, only refer them as a Chinese habit. What’s more, the students’ comprehension on verbal quantifiers comes from their own perception in language practice.In teaching Chinese verbal quantifiers to Japanese, teachers must determine teaching content on the prerequisite of knowing the difference between Chinese verbal quantifiers and Japanese similar application of verbal quantifiers. In this paper, from the perspective of teaching Chinese to Japanese, we analyze collocation between Chinese verbal quantifiers and verbs and numerals, and the equivalent in Japanese. Then we summary the patterns. We also look into the verbal quantifiers’ distribution in Chinese textbooks and the Chinese tests in Japan. Finally, we investigate and analyze Japanese students’ mastery level of Chinese verbal quantifiers by questionnaire. After the work above, we summary the Japanese students’ problems in learning Chinese verbal quantifiers and make suggestions for improving Chinese verbal quantifier teaching.