Chinese international students who come to the United States to study for the first time may have difficulties in many facets (Kluaythong, 2020), and learning two-word verbs can be one of the challenges for them, like the majority of speakers of other languages, because the meanings are hard to guess in diverse contexts in conversations (White, 2012).
Native speakers are inclined to use two-word verbs in daily interaction frequently (Wang, 2018). For example, a native English-speaking classmate might say, “the professors’ lecture kicks off (synonym for the regular verb “start”) at two o’clock this afternoon”; or a peer from the United States may urge his/her friend to wrap up (synonym for the regular verb “finish”) the assignment as soon as possible and hang out (synonym for the regular verb “relax”) with them.
Another reason for the difficulty in the acquisition of two-word verbs is because the traditional way of teaching students two-word verbs relies mainly on rote memorization (Fu, 2015) and in a classroom-based setting (Chan & Liou, 2005). Students find it tedious to learn, not to mention to apply these words to daily conversation.
Moreover, “the dictionaries and textbooks used by English language learners often pay little attention to the two-word verbs. They are often done in fine print and are hard to find” (Meyer, 2014, pp. 3-4). Chinese students have little access to the variety of published books available to students in English-speaking countries such as the United States.
In conclusion, Chinese international students face English learning problems, specifically two-word verb learning issues, because of the reasons mentioned above. In addition, a lack of mastery of two-word verbs that are highly used by native English speakers causes miscommunication problems between Chinese international students and native speakers of English.
