Error Analysis Of Chinese Idioms Of Thai Students

Idioms are a representative kind of terms in Chinese. Most of them come from everyday life of Han ethnic group and reflect social customs and habits, traditional ideas and mode of thinking of Han ethnic group. Chinese idioms are difficult for second language learners to master and use, therefore in the process of studying a lot of errors are made. At present, there are many research findings concerning Chinese idioms, but there are only a few researches from the vocabulary point of view. As for the Chinese-Thai contrast studies, they are only a few to count. This paper basing on summary of predecessors’ research makes a relatively overall comparison of Chinese and Thai idioms, includes the results of the survey conducted among Thai university students majoring in Chinese, and gives error analysis. It helps to understand what kind of problems intermediate and advanced Chinese learners are faced with while studying Chinese idioms, so that we can further understand the study situation of Thai students. We also hope that Thai students studying Chinese and Chinese students studying Thai language can use it for reference.First of all, this paper contrasts Chinese idioms with Thai idioms from the point of view of definition, semantics, structure and pragmatics, it contains a survey conducted among Thai students, explains the design of the survey, provides a statistic analysis of the survey. One of the chapters is entirely devoted to the analysis of errors Thai students make while studying Chinese idioms, it summarizes possible reasons of semantic, grammar and pragmatic errors. The reasons of errors are mainly divided into subjective and objective. Subjective reasons include interference of mother tongue, influence of learning strategy, insufficient knowledge of Chinese, cultural differences etc.; objective reasons include the influence of teaching materials, teachers, learning environment and also the influence of Chinese idioms themselves. At the end of the chapter, in order to avoid errors some strategies of teaching Chinese idioms are given: 1) compiling effective teaching materials suitable for foreign students to study Chinese, including the choice of Chinese idioms to foreigners etc.; 2) changing the teaching model. For example, teaching Chinese idioms in context, increasing context teaching of Chinese idioms and guiding students to a conclusion; finally, promoting studying Chinese idioms using various methods, for example, helps students to set up a dictionary of idioms in their minds, combining traditional and modern methods of teaching etc. As a result of writer’s limited level of Chinese and academic level, the paper may contain some mistakes, from now on the writer will continue to work hard to increase her level of Chinese comprehension.