ERROR ANALYSIS OF CHINESE TERMS “YIDIANER” and “YOUDIANER” USED BY LEARNERS OF CHINESE AS A SECOND LANGUAGE
Xiwen Li
Student, Seton University
In Chinese, “Yidianer” and “Youdianer” both have the similar meaning of describing low degrees. As a result, they are frequently confused with each other. In order to find out the reasons for misusing of “yidianer” and “youdianer” and give suggestions for teaching, the two terms were searched in the HSK (Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi or Chinese Proficiency Test) Dynamic Composition Corpus to analyzing the errors students have made. The paper finds that “yidianer” has higher error rates than “youdianer”, and learners of Chinese as a second language (CSL) often confuse “youdianer” with “yidianer” and “you+yidianer” due to similar sentence patterns. The paper also analyses the errors from semantic, syntax and pragmatic aspects.