A study of the confusable words in Chinese for the students from Russia and Central Asia

The most serious mistakes made by Chinese learners from different background of mother tongues are vocabulary ones, esp. the misuse of synonyms and homoionyms. This paper aims at the analysis of the causes of the vocabulary errors. The traditional criteria to distinguish between synonyms and homoionyms are the consistency of word class, the proximity of meaning and the same language systems. The criteria are not fit to be used in the teaching of Chinese as second language because the synonyms and homoionyms that the international students accept spread far beyond the criteria. In order to enlarge the scope of vocabulary study, this paper makes a further study of synonyms and homoionyms as well as confusable words based on the misuse of confusable words by the students from Russia and Central Asia. A conclusion is drawn that the study of confusable words are to be conducted in accordance with nationalities. The conclusion is illustrated by the Interlanguage Corpus of the International Students from Russia and Central Asia.