Survey for academic purpose

[Carl Chen]

Hi all,

 

Recently I am doing a research regarding the relationship between compound awareness and reading comprehension of Chinese.

And I am looking for subjects who had been studying/are learning Chinese as a second/foreign language.

 

If you don't mind, please help me fill out the online questionnaire (short test).

It is highly appreciated if you could do me a favor.

 

I know some may learn either simplified Chinese or traditional Chinese, so I made two versions of questionnaire.

Simplified Chinese version: http://www.mysurvey.tw/s/kHY7C5R5

Traditional Chinese version: http://www.mysurvey.tw/s/8cNzg37y

 

 

Many thanks!!

 

 

By the way, I forget to introduce myself.

I come from Taiwan. I speak Chinese, English, and Taiwanese.

 

If you have any question about Chinese, you are welcome to ask me.

 

[roddy]

Do you really really really promise to come back and tell us what your survey found?

[Carl Chen]

RE #2:

 

Sure. This survey is one of my final project in the PhD program.

Thus, I must do something and find out if there is any relationship between these two factors.

 

If anyone is interested in the result, I will reply it after finishing my final project.

[roddy]

Thanks, Carl. We actually have a lot of people on here who would be interested in hearing more about it. 

[Carl Chen]

Re #4

 

Until now, I have gathered the data from only eight participants. The sample size is way too small.

Thus, I come to this forum asking for help.

 

Only when the sample size is big enough is the result more likely to be generalized into a population pool.

Hopefully I can find out more participants here.

[Lu]

I just filled it in. Can you tell a bit more about what you're testing, and how this survey tests that? It felt like an exam and I wonder what it tests other than the Chinese reading comprehension of the people taking it.

 

One interesting thing I saw in the results, between spoiler tags so as not to give away the answer:

The question: 工__  人/家/员. Of three people filling it in, two had 工员, I had 工人. Made me wonder if that was influenced by me being a bit more China-oriented at the moment (as opposed to Taiwan-oriented), and whether you'll get different results from people taking the test in simplified versus traditional.

[Carl Chen]

Re #6:

 

Hi Lu,

 

I would like to examine if there is any relationship between compound awareness and reading comprehension of Chinese. The first part, ten questions, is to test your compound awareness of Chinese words. And the rest of questions is to test your reading comprehension.

 

Also, if possible, i may analyze the data with other factors such as age, nationality, and how many years you studied Chinese.

 

Regarding the question in the spoiler tag, in fact, I haven't been to China.

So I am not very sure about how people in China will use it.

 

But one thing I am sure is that your answer is correct in Taiwan.

 

At the beginning, I only made one traditional Chinese version.

But my foreign friends told me that some of them are learning simplified Chinese.

So I made another version of questionnaire.

 

As for what you mentioned about the usage between China and Taiwan, I have to admit that I do not pay attention to this aspect. What i did is to simply translate traditional Chinese into simplified one. Hopefully the results are still valid.

Edited June 11, 2014 at 09:03 AM by Carl Chen

[tysond]

I just filled it in, good luck with your research.

[ouyangjun]

Just filled it out.  Hope it helps

[dnevets]

Just filled it out. I'm guessing/hoping that it's a good sign that I got the same answers as almost all other people; I assume that means I've chosen the right ones. But am I the only one that thinks there is more than one possible correct answer to some of the questions?

[Carl Chen]

Re #10:

 

I think there is only one answer for each question.

 

If you have any question, you can post here. Perhaps I can help you.

 

But it'll be better to use spoiler tag, so other participant will not see the answer.

 

By the way....I have no idea about how to use spoiler tag....ha...

[Lu]

[ spoiler ]Here you write the things you don't want to spoil[ / spoiler ]

Take out the spaces, those are your spoiler tags.

[Carl Chen]

測試

 

Thanks a lot!! 我會了!! (happy)

[dnevets]

Hi Carl.

How about these two questions. I think they each have more than one answer that could be considered correct.

 

19. 3. 那个小女孩 _____ 有一只狗。 *

• 旁边
• 前边
• 后边

 

20. 4. 那只狗 _____ 睡觉。 *

• 在
• 要
• 是

 

...or is my grammar really that rusty? :-/

[Carl Chen]

3. 如果我們要形容前和後,不會加上"邊",而是"面"

 

For example,

那個小女孩前面有一隻狗

那個小女孩後面有一隻狗

 

Note:

I am not very sure how China people use it.

But if we compare these three items, 旁邊 is the best choice in Taiwan

And i am not saying that 邊 cannot be added after 前 and 後....but it is not frequently used.

 

 

4. 那隻狗___睡覺

 

First of all, we can ignore the impossible option, C.是

 

Then, why do we choose 在 rather than 要

Of course these two are possible answer, but 在 is the most appropriate.

 

if we choose 要, the end of this sentence needs to add one word, 了.

 

Another explanation is that

we use 要 when we know someone is going to do something

For example, 我要寫功課了/他要出國了

 

However, we do not know if a dog is going to sleep.

The dog may just lie down the floor.

 

Usually we cannot know/notice when the dog will sleep.

When we find out, the dog is usually sleeping.

 

If the subject is people, perhaps both 在 and 要 are OK.

That a person is lying on a bed, and cover himself with blanket implies he is going to sleep.

 

 

But 在 is still better because we usually use 要....了

For example, 那個人要睡覺了

 

Thus, 在 is the best choice.

 

 

----------------------

 

I am not sure if the explanation is understandable to you.

Hopefully it helps.

[Lu]

I was wondering about the same two questions, thanks for the explanation, the first one makes sense now. As to the dog,

I see why 在 is the more obvious option, and if I recall correctly it's also the option I picked, but what if the dog is not going to sleep, but wants to sleep?

[Carl Chen]

As what I mentioned,

We do not know if a dog is going to sleep.

The dog may just lie down the floor.

The dog cannot speak a language to tell us

 

Usually we cannot know/notice when the dog is about to sleep.

When we find out, the dog is usually sleeping.

 

For example,

那隻鳥___飛 (在 or 要)

那隻蝴蝶___採蜜 (在 or 要)

青蛙___產卵 (在 or 要)

 

要 = is about to do (not done yet, but is going to do)

But how can we know a bird/butterfly/frog is going to do?

Unless they are doing some conventional behavior or saying/revealing something that implies us.

So we possibly know they are about to do something

 

Pretending that If everybody knows a bird that is about to fly when the bird is dancing.

Then you may use 要, when you see a bird dancing.

But remember to put 了 at the end. 

[Silent]

 

I am not sure if the explanation is understandable to you.

Hopefully it helps.

 

I'm only a beginner so maybe not really qualified in this matter, but to me it felt, and after your explanation still feels, like it's context dependent. To me they are linguistically equal. The simple fact that one thing is more common or easier perceived then another is imho no justification to claim it's the better answer in a language test. Unless of course a context is supplied that provides a clear clue about what of the linguistically correct answers is the better one.

[imron]

Intention aside, there's still another aspect: "if we choose 要, the end of this sentence needs to add one word, 了".

 

That fact will make one answer more linguistically correct than the other.

[Silent]

I can't rationalize why 了would be needed, but it feels sensible to me.

 

Stil open 哪边有一只狗?, to me there's no reason to prefer one side over another. I can imagine that if told that a girl is with a dog people tend to picture the dog at a certain position relative to the girl, but why would that assumption be the correct answer? No matter how unlikely it may sound, without context that dog may very well be above the girl.