Just like the different levels of English words, Chinese characters and words can be classified into words of various difficulty levels. Therefore, if foreigners want to make great progress in learning Mandarin Chinese, they should learn different words in accordance with their language levels. Several groups of similar words for learners in advanced level will be learned in this article.
The pair of words “瓦解” and “崩溃” are often explained when you attend to school to learn Mandarin. “瓦解” has similar meaning with “collapse” in English. It often used for the organization, party, army and so on. It is allowed to take objects. For examples, “帝国瓦解了”, “我们的宣传鼓动瓦解了敌军的斗志”.
“崩溃” has two levels of meanings. We can use to describe something breaks down. We can say “堤坝崩溃了，淹死很多人”. Another meaning is “to destroy thoroughly”. Foreigners who learn Chinese in China should pay attention to that it often used for nation, politic, economy, military and so on. So we can say “国家经济崩溃”.
When learners who study in China want to express something is close to another thing, they can use four words “靠近”, “接近”, “临近” and “逼近”. But they have tiny differences. We can say two objects have close distance to each other by using “靠近” like “宾馆靠近火车站”. It also can be used to the situation that two things are getting closer gradually. For instance, “向敌人的阵地靠近”.
“接近” indicates the same meaning but learners who study Chinese should know that the objects are often abstract thought, feeling, opinion, suggestion and so on. For example, “接近世界先进水平”. “临近” implies something is coming, often in time or space like “临近考试”. “逼近” means one thing is getting closer to another, but not used to express two things are close. We often say “敌人渐渐逼近”.
The differences among “边境”, “边疆” and “边界” are very confusing for those who learn Mandarin in China. “边界” means the boundaries of two different areas, especially indicates the national boundaries. The emphasis is the boundary line. We often say “划分边界”.
“边境” is the place around the boundary. It emphasizes the “place”. What we often hear are “边境地区” and “边境冲突”. Teachers in qualified Mandarin program often stress this word that it carries the meaning of domestic territory close to the boundary. The point is the domestic territory within the border. We can say “支援边疆建设”.
The words “变化”, “变动” and “变更” are inevitable to learn when foreigners learn Chinese language in China. When “变化” used as a verb, it means “to change”. For instance, “人民的生活发生了很大的变化”. As a noun, it means the changed situations like “新的变化”. The objects can be natural phenomena and artificial results. But it takes no objects directly.
The word “变动” also indicates to alter. We can say “改后的句子变动了几个词”. But teachers in Chinese school in China would tell you that the “alteration” can’t be the natural phenomena but can be social phenomena. Besides, it can take objects directly such as “教练根据赛场形式变动了队员出场顺序”.
“变更” carries the meaning of “changing something into another”. It has the meaning of “modification”. It is often applied to describe the changing of the ordinary things. Besides, objects can be used directly. Those who just begin to learn to speak Chinese may be familiar with the sentences “变更居留证地址” and “变更作息时间”.
It is not enough for teachers to provide the detailed explanation to the Chinese language learners. More importantly, they should guide students to find the techniques to distinguish words.