During the Chinese language learning process, foreign learners often make mistakes in reading the Chinese characters, which is usually indicated in three aspects. First of all, the Chinese characters with the similar forms and strokes as well as those composed of the same elements are often confusing for the students who study in online Chinese Lessons. Such kind of mistakes are usually resulted from two aspects, one of which is the number of strokes are totally the same or similar and only certain important point is different so that the learners fail to tell them apart such as 了and子, 乌and鸟as well as 休and体.

Another reason is that the two characters are composed of one certain element so that mistakes are made in recognizing, thus the pronunciation is confused by the learners. For example, it is possible for the overseas students to read 艰难as 退难 and articulate 刻苦 as该苦. The second aspect in which the learners often make mistakes is because the same or similar meanings of the words. Since there are many words with similar meanings in Chinese language, the students also make mistakes when reading the words.

Such kind of mistakes is often made in the disyllabic compound words. To be specific, the students often read one character in the disyllabic compounds into another character. For instance, it often happens that the students read 游in旅游as泳in游泳 and articulate 习in练习into学in学习. There is also another condition appears in the characters with the same of similar meanings. That is to say, they are confused with the characters with the similar meanings. Student got internships in China may know 赚and挣are a group of similar words. Therefore, they may read 挣钱as赚钱.

The last but not least situation that the students often make mistakes in reading Chinese characters is to depend much on the characteristic that the sound element of characters indicate the pronunciation to read. There are many examples of such kind of mistakes such as reading 橱柜as橱巨 and reading 技能into 支能. For those students come from the western countries, they often have many different feelings about the parts difficult to read in the characters, which are related to the form of the characters.