Database Design of an Online E-Learning Tool of Chinese Classifiers

Chinese noun classifiers are an indispensible part of the Chinese language, but are difficult for non-native speakers to use correctly. Chinese language teachers often face challenges in finding an effective way to teach classifiers, as the rules for defining which nouns can be associated with which classifiers are not straightforward. Many theoretical studies have explored the nature of Chinese classifiers, but few studies take an empirical approach to the investigation of effective teaching and learning methods of classifiers. Learners often find that existing dictionaries either do not have classifiers as lexical entries, or give very brief explanations that are hardly helpful. This paper presents the progress of an ongoing project on the construction of an e-dictionary of Chinese classifiers. The objective of the project is to provide a platform for Chinese language learners to explore and learn classifier uses in a bottom-up fashion. The current work is on the design of an e-learning tool database and its connection to the e-dictionary database. Descriptions of the design and the functions of the e-learning tool are provided in the paper.