Yidali xuexizhe hanyu yihunxiaoci pianwu fenxi ji jiaoxue duice yanjiu

Confusion of words with close meaning is a problem very difficult to overcome for Italian students of Chinese language. At the present time, academic works about confusable words specifically referring to students of different nationalities are very few. Therefore, in this paper I deal with the difficulties Italian students encounter while learning Chinese confusable words analyze their more common mistakes and suggest some solution for the teaching of these words. After reading the available confusable words-related materials and a long time-taking survey based on three questionnaires and many interview with students and professours, I defined the range of my research choosing 38 of the Chinese terms (divided in 18 groups) which are more frequently confused by Italian students. Based on theories of comparative analysis and foreign language students’error analysis, I classified the mistakes in the usage of the words I have chosen in cathegories and tried to identify the causes of their errors. Finally, I proposed a set of teaching strategies to help the students overcome this kind of obstacle. This work is divided into four parts. The introduction includes: an explanation of the background and the significance of the topic choice; a review of the sources; an exposition of the contents and the methods of my research. The second part describes in detail the structure of the questionnaires and the content of the interview and outlines the results of the survey. In the third chapter there are the classification of the mistakes based on error analysis theory and the study of the causes based on comparative analysis. The influence of Italian as mother tongue is a key problem in the learning of Chinese vocabulary, thus it is the main concern of this study. I distinguished various circumstances and several ways the students are misleaded by their mother language, e.g.: several Chinese words can be translated into the same Italian words; different Chinese words can be translated in different but inter-related Italian words; no Italian words are available to translate a certain Chinese term. Then I also examine other causes of the errors. The fourth chapter is the most important of this paper: basing myself on the causes of the errors previously analyzed, I put forward a complete set of teaching strategies addressed both to the Italian and the Chinese teachers. Four steps of the teaching of confusable words are outlined: first, a preliminary discussion of the differences between confusable words; second, a comprehensive analysis of these differences; third, summarization; at last, review and consolidation. Then I specifically discuss the strategies to make students understand the differences between the words. Among these, I propose: constant use of typical sentences; paying attention to words combinations; use of morpheme analysis; emphasizing the teaching of grammar cathegories of words; taking advantage of some similarity between the two languages; memorizing comparative examples; using the cultural features of some morphemes and words; helping memorization through multisensory matching exercises and so on. The objective of such strategies and teaching methods is to solve practical problems in teaching of Chinese vocabulary. In the conclusions, I summarize the several kinds of difficulties Italian students have to deal with when faced with Chinese confusable words, the typologies of their mistakes and the possible solutions. In the end, I also expose the main weaknesses and shortcomings of my work.