Analyzing Iranian students’ common errors on Chinese existential sentences

Existential sentences in Chinese indicate the existence, appearance, or disappearance of objects or people at a specific location. Numerous research papers have been published on Chinese existential sentences, and many native speakers of various languages have surveyed the errors made by Chinese learners in their respective countries. However, there is a lack of research on Iranian students in this area, highlighting the need for investigation. This article primarily focuses on analyzing the common mistakes made by Persian speakers when using Chinese existential sentences. Five main types of Chinese existential sentences are selected for analysis: sentences with "是" (shì), sentences with "有" (yǒu), sentences with "在" (zài), sentences with "V+着" (zhe), and sentences with "V+了" (le). The analysis in this article is based on questionnaire survey results obtained from Iranian students studying in China, as well as the characteristics of Persian language structure and grammar. Using the Contrastive Analysis theory and Error Analysis, the collected data has been analyzed. The resulting errors are categorized into four main types: omission, addition, substitution, and transformation. Studying these errors not only aids Iranian learners of Chinese in their language acquisition process but also provides valuable insights to educators in selecting appropriate teaching methods and improving the organization of classes and training courses in this field.