Language Interference in the Process of Learning Chinese by Russian-Speaking Students

The article is devoted to the problem of language interference that arises in the process of learning Chinese by Russian-speaking students. The paper examines the theoretical foundations of the concept of interference in Russian and international linguistics, analyzes its types and features as manifested in the conditions of subordinative bilingualism. Particular attention is paid to phonetic interference caused by the differences in the articulatory bases of Russian and Chinese, as well as to lexical-semantic and grammatical-syntactic difficulties encountered by Russian-speaking students in mastering the analytical structure of the Chinese language. Based on the oral and written speech of students from Moscow State Pedagogical University (MSPU) and the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), the study identifies the most frequent interference errors, including mistakes in the use of modal verbs and classifiers, as well as in the construction of sentences with qualitative predicates and locative markers. The analysis of the collected data makes it possible to determine the systematic nature of interference and its influence on the development of learners’ intercultural communicative competence. The study employed methods of contrastive analysis, pedagogical observation, questionnaires, and analysis of students’ written works and oral utterances, which allowed the identification and classification of interference errors. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the comprehensive description and systematization of interference errors made by Russian-speaking students in learning Chinese at the phonetic, lexical-semantic, and grammatical-syntactic levels. Unlike studies focused primarily on phonetic difficulties, this work views interference as a multi-level process reflecting the specific interaction between two linguistic systems. The findings demonstrate that interference errors are stable and recurring, which complicates the development of foreign language communicative competence. The identification and classification of typical errors make it possible not only to gain a deeper understanding of Russian-Chinese interference in subordinative bilingualism but also to develop practical methodological recommendations for teachers of Chinese in further studies. Taking these errors into account will contribute to designing effective strategies for teaching Chinese as a foreign language.