Strategies used by Greek CFL Beginner’s level learners for Learning Chinese characters

Abstract: Every year, more and more foreign students learn Chinese. This also includes many Greeks. At present, the books and teaching materials related to learning Chinese are usually in English or other languages, but there are not many in Greek. Research on Chinese language teaching so far has mainly focused on English-speaking students or students in Asia, and the purpose of this study is to examine the strategies used by Greek students in the early stages of their exposure to Chinese characters. The research aim is to study the strategies that Greek CFL beginner’s level students use to recognize and use the Chinese characters. According to current research, English-speaking students' strategies for learning the Chinese characters are to use frequently, copy, observe the stroke order and pay attention to the spelling and pronunciation of the Chinese characters; Korean and Japanese learners pay attention to the stroke positions of the Chinese characters, while Malaysian learners usually type the characters on a computer. Using the qualitative research method, ther esearcher conducted interviews with six Greek students, as such studies better describe participants' experiences and points of view. Analysis of the interview results showed that Greek students' strategies for learning Chinese characters include: connecting the Chinese characters with Greek morphemes, associating the Chinese characters with real-life images,using online dictionaries or apps to look up characters, memorizing Chinese characters, analyzing Chinese characters’ Components, using pinyin and reading the Chinese characters.