“Series of Teaching Foreigners Chinese Grammar” is the achievement of “Research and Development of Grammar Syllabus for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language and Teaching Reference Grammar Series (Multi-volume)”, a major project of National Social Science Fund of China sponsored by Professor Qi Huyang, which has been selected as the “2022 Founding Project of National Publication Foundation”. As an important reference book for international Chinese language education, it aims to build and improve the “Grammar System of Chinese Teaching” for foreign students to meet the development needs of the new era. It mainly serves the first-line Chinese teachers, researchers, graduate students and undergraduates majoring in Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages. This series consists of 39 volumes, including 4 outline series, 26 book series, 8 summary series, and 1 collection of essays.

This book is a sub-volume of the third series, Modal Words. Chinese modal word is very rich, with ethereal and varied meanings and strong interactivity, and thus has always been a difficult and weak point in the teaching of Chinese as a second language. This book builds a knowledge framework for teaching modal words from four aspects including theory, knowledge, acquisition, and teaching practice, aiming to help readers understand the usage of typical modal words and master the method of analyzing the interactive function of modal words in teaching practice. At the same time, the book provides direct guidance on teaching typical modal words by employing bias analyses and related teaching cases.

Zheng Jiaping is a Ph.D. in Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Language from Beijing Language and Culture University (BLCU), an associate professor in the College of Teacher Education and a Young Master Teacher of BLCU, who was selected for the “Beijing Colleges and Universities Young Talent Programme”. Her research mainly focuses on Chinese grammar teaching and second language acquisition. She has published more than ten papers in domestic and international journals and two monographs, and co-edited several textbooks such as New Practical Chinese Reader.

I. Is it difficult to use Chinese modal words?

When faced with this question, it may occur to you that there’s nothing to it because we say and use it every day. If you think like this, let’s do a self-test with the following three questions.

1. What’s the difference between “你不去？” and “你不去啊？”?

2. What’s the difference between “不是！” and “不是呀！”?

3. Does “妈妈回来吧！”  have the same meaning with “妈妈回来呀！”?

II. Are Chinese modal words easy to teach?

Front-line teachers may helplessly shake their head and sigh to answer this question. Students make various errors: “你每天都洗澡吗？要是停水？” “你叫什么名字吗？” “这个呢，是我去年买的衣服了。” “不必再道歉吧。” How to correct such errors?

When a student comes to you for advice on a problem, saying “老师，你给我讲一下这个词呗。”.  Although there’s no grammatical mistake, it doesn’t make you feel very comfortable. So, what’s wrong with this sentence? How do you correct it?

Do the above questions make you less confident? Chinese modal words are diverse, dynamic and subtle, with abstract meanings and ethereal and varied usages. It is limited in quantity but rich in usage. Only the six typical modal words “的、了、吧、啊、吗、呢” have brought a lot of trouble to us, not to mention “哇、哦、呀、着呢、罢了、就是了”, etc.

III. Answers from this book

Based on the principles of practicality, popularity and teaching a man to fish, this book takes you into modal words from the perspectives of theory, knowledge, acquisition and teaching. By the means of incorporating points into planes, “呀” and “吧” are selected for the detailed introduction of syntactic distribution features, discourse function analysis, and communication function analysis, and “啊”, “呗” and other commonly used modal words are selected to introduce typical functions and usages, trying to help readers understand the usage of modal words and master the method of analyzing the usage of modal words in teaching practice. Meanwhile, by combining error analysis and classroom activity design examples, this book helps readers master the principles of classroom design and activities for teaching modal words. Of course, you can find the answers to all the previously mentioned questions in this book.

It is recommended for front-line teachers of language education, language teaching researchers, and postgraduate students majoring in international Chinese language education and other language education.