earticle

영어

Previous studies suggest that the process of learning a second language is often influenced by the first language (mother tongue), and this interference is often negative. For decades, second language acquisition research often focuses on L1 constraints on L2 learning and performance, positive language transfer in second language acquisition is rarely mentioned. In fact, adult learners often take advantages of the similarities between their mother tongue and the target language to learn new knowledge. This is especially the case for Vietnamese learners learning Chinese, as Vietnam and China have close and related history, geography and culture, Vietnamese and Chinese languages also share many similarities. The development of the Vietnamese language has been influenced remarkably by the Chinese language, and indeed, a large number of Chinese originated words have still existed in the contemporary Vietnamese. Moreover, Vietnamese people had used Chinese language for their everyday communication for a long period of time in their history. Thus Vietnamese learners learning Chinese gain more advantages over Western learners. The similarities between the two languages and cultures have helped Vietnamese learners a lot in acquiring Chinese as a second language. This helps students not only better acquire the language, it also helps them to better understand the target culture. This paper aims to discuss the position of Sino-Vietnamese words in the Vietnamese language system and the positive language transfer these words can create for Vietnamese learners learning Chinese. It also suggests that the Sino-Vietnamese words can also be used in the teaching of Chinese phonetic and vocabulary for Vietnamese students.