An Analysis of Substitution Errors Made in Reading Standard Chinese Characters by Students of the Confucius Institute at the University of Nairobi

Abstract

The present study investigated the errors made in reading standard Chinese characters by students of the Confucius Institute at the University of Nairobi. Each participant was given a passage to read aloud in isolation while being recorded using an audio recorder. Errors were then identified and analysed. The study identified three major types of errors: errors of substitution, errors of omission and errors of addition. In this paper only errors of substitution are discussed because they were numerous.