The Error Analysis of ¡§Le¡¨Based on ¡§Chinese Learner Written Corpus¡¨

The function word “le” in Chinese serves as both a sentence final particle (le1) and an aspect marker (le2). As an aspect marker indicating the completion of action, “le” has been observed to be frequently misused by learners of Chinese, among which the overgeneralization of “le” a past-tense marker is the most glaring. Based on “NTNU Chinese learners’ written corpus”, we analyzed the usage and the error types of “le” made by English-speaking learners at the beginning (A2) and the intermediate level (B1).The results show that both A2 and B1 learners acquire le2 before le1, and in terms of error analyses, le1 is the most commonly spotted error type and there is a large number of redundancy of the use of le2 and le(1+2). Therefore, in a similar vein with Teng (1999), this current study sides with the proposition that the use of le2 along with its associated sentence patterns should be taught prior to that of le1. Pedagogical implication as well as the suggestion of the editing of CFL textbooks are also provided.