Chinese Language Complexities among International Students in China

This paper reports on a study investigating features related to Chinese linguistic complexities among international students enrolled in Chinese courses in China. The main objective of this study is to highlight the major feature of Chinese complexities encountered by international students and explore whether international students' native languages interfere the process of learning Chinese. The study used a survey questionnaire to collect the data from 147 male and female Bachelor, Master and PhD students enrolled in basic Chinese classes in two universities in China. Based on certain Descriptive and ANOVA calculations, findings of the study indicate that the participants indeed experienced Sound Similarities, Chinese Characters and Chinese Tones as the main features related to Chines linguistic complexities. Moreover, the results also revealed the participants' native language interference in the process of learning Chinese. The study ends in several recommendations to Chinese teachers as well as to foreign Chinese language learners with regard to teaching and learning Chinese.