The Acquisition of English Articles by Chinese Learners

Abstract

English articles pose a lot of problems even after years of L2 English exposure and learning. The question is why it is so difficult to acquire these elements when a learner does not have them in their native language. This question points to a deeper reason that involves looking into the structure of L1 and L2 and understanding their differences. In this paper, we focus on Chinese learners of English, where Chinese is a language without articles. In order to find out more about the differences in the structure of the grammar between the elementary and advanced learners, we conducted a simple empirical study using a close test. The results show that there are differences between article use among elementary and advanced learners, and that advanced learners were more target-like in their article use than the elementary learners.