A Contrastive Study of Chinese words “Qŭdé”, “Huòdé” and “Dédào” and their Thai Equivalents

Abstract

The verbs “qŭdé”, “huòdé” and “dédào” are frequently used in Chinese. They can be translated as “dai” and “dairap” in Thai. This research aims to help Thai students eliminate the obstacles from learning these three near-synonyms and have better understanding of their different usages. Methodology applied in this paper is of some dictionaries and textbooks that are widely used both in mainland China and Taiwan. Based on Sinica Corpus, Thai National Corpus and results from early researches, I will analyze the semantic features and collocation of “qŭdé”, “huòdé” and “dédào”, and also compare with “dai” and “dairap” in Thai language. Finally, I will explain a structure-sequence of “qŭdé”, “huòdé” and “dédào” with some pedagogical implications for Thai learners. The result is that the semantic features and collocation of “qŭdé” are very close to “dai 1”, whereas that of “huòdé” are nearly similar to “dai 2” and “dairap”, and “dédào” are quite equivalent to “dai” and “dairap”. Therefore, an instructor should clearly distinguish “qŭdé”, “huòdé” and “dédào” and clarify their meanings and collocations. Moreover, he/she should have students practice more on the usage of these three near-synonyms.