Acquisition of the Modal Verbs “keyi” (可以) and “ke” (可) in Chinese by Vietnamese Students

Abstract

This study employs error analysis and contrastive interlanguage analysis to investigate the acquisition of the Chinese modal verbs “keyi” (可以) and “ke” (可) by Vietnamese students, based on the Vietnamese Learners’ Chinese Interlanguage Corpus. The results show that “keyi” (可以) is used more frequently than “ke” (可), with the meaning “expressing the possibility of carrying out an action” having the highest frequency and a relatively stable accuracy rate. The most common errors are confusion errors, occurring in meanings that overlap in function with other modal verbs such as “neng” (能), “hui” (会), and “keneng” (可能). The analysis also identifies four main factors influencing the acquisition process: the limited number of meanings, semantic overlap with other modal verbs, differences between Chinese and Vietnamese, and limitations in existing teaching materials.