Article 4 : A STUDY OF THAI CHINESE LEARNERS’ UNDERSTANDING OFCHINESE PREPOSITIONS OF DIRECTION “上” (SHÀNG) TRANSLATED TO THAI—A CASE STUDY OF THIRD-YEAR STUDENTS MAJORINGIN CHINESE AT NAKHONRATCHASIMA RAJABHAT UNIVERSITY

Abstract

The objective of this research was to study misconceptions about

prepositions of direction or “上” (Shàng) in Chinese among third-year students

majoring in Chinese at Nakhon Ratchasima Rajabhat University. The sample of

this study was 55 third-year students majoring in Chinese at Nakhon Ratchasima

Rajabhat University’s Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.

The research

found that only 23.77% of the sample clearly understood the meanings of the

prepositions of direction after taking the first part of the test. In the second part

of the test, 61.3% answered questions regarding the prepositions’ grammatical

functions correctly. 31.66% of the sample gave the correct answers in the third

part examining the use of the prepositions in different context and 59.74% were

able to translate the prepositions of direction from Chinese to Thai correctly.

The study concluded that the sample in this study had the best understanding

of the grammatical functions of the Chinese prepositions of direction whereas

they had the least understanding of different meanings of the prepositions of

direction.