“Series for 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 Funding 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 front-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 series.

Adverb of time is a very important subclass of modern Chinese adverbs, which not only occupies a lot in quantity, but also plays a very important role in real expressions. It has always been one of the grammatical problems with high attention from the Chinese grammar academia, and also one of the difficulties in the teaching of Chinese as a foreign language. Starting from the teaching of Chinese as a second language, this book absorbs and draws on the relevant results of Chinese ontology research to sort out and analyse adverbs of time in modern Chinese at three levels, including theory, acquisition and teaching.

The theoretical chapter mainly discusses the conceptual definition, internal classification, external crossover, grammatical functions, collocational restrictions and other issues of adverbs of time. The acquisition chapter, on the basis of the theoretical chapter and in conjunction with the teaching, selects a number of adverbs of time including multi-functional adverbs, confusing adverbs, and proximate adverbs to deepen the knowledge of these adverbs of time through comparative analysis and error analysis. Moreover, the teaching chapter provides suggestions for Chinese language teachers on classroom teaching and exercise design.

Edited by Li Tiefan, authored by Li Cui

Li Tiefan, the Editor-in-Chief, is a Ph.D. in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics from Shanghai Normal University, a professor and president of Huangshan University, and a Master Teacher of Anhui Province. He is in charge of the national first-class undergraduate major of “Chinese International Education” and the national first-class undergraduate curriculum of “Modern Chinese”. His research mainly focuses on modern Chinese grammar and teaching Chinese as a foreign language. Professor Li has published more than 50 papers in journals such as Social Sciences in China Press, Curriculum, Teaching Material and Method and one monograph, and has presided over more than 10 projects such as the sub-projects of major projects of the National Social Science Fund and major projects of key research bases of the Ministry of Education for humanities and social sciences. He was awarded the first prize of social science by the People’s Government of Anhui Province and the first prize of teaching achievements in Anhui Province.

Li Cui is a Ph.D. in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics from Shanghai Normal University and a lecturer at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law. Her research mainly focuses on modern Chinese grammar and international Chinese education. Professor Li has published several papers in core journals such as Language Teaching and Linguistic Studies, and presided over one project of Shanghai Annual Philosophy and Social Science Planning Project.

This book focuses on the adverb of time. Firstly, the author explains the nature of adverb of time and the differences with other word classes, so that readers can have a clear understanding on the object of this book. Secondly, the author breaks down the knowledge related to multi-functional, confusing, and error-prone adverbs of time, combines them with examples, and explains it in clear and easy-to-understand language, so as to make readers recognize the differences in the use of these adverbs. Finally, the author provides suggestions about teaching adverbs of time from the perspective of teaching technique, teaching modes, teaching methods, and exercise design.

After reading this book, readers can have a macro-understanding of adverb of time, which is an important subclass of adverbs, and have a more accurate grasp of the usage and differentiation of certain specific adverbs of time.

This book is recommended for frontline Chinese language teachers, researchers, graduate and undergraduate students majoring in Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Language.