A Study of the Causes of Errors Made by Iranian Learners in the Application of Spanish DefiniteArticles

Document Type : research article

Author

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to help instruct students the
particular aspects of using articles in the Spanish language, a concept that
has not yet been thoroughly studied  by
researchers. Articles are one of the most controversial issues in the Spanish
language, since there are many controversies about their uses and functions.
These differences creates many difficulties in learning the article for
students taking Spanish as a secondlanguage. Therefore, through an
experimentalstudy composed of a questionnaire that aimed at assessing Iranian
learners’ competencies in three levels,an introductory level, an intermediate
level and an advanced level, this paper aims to present the differentapplications
of this linguistic element in the form of a specific model, divided into three
categories,i.e., grammatical, syntactic and semantic. The study of learners’
errors in each of these categories will be discussed. Finally, the main factors
affecting these errors in order to facilitate the understanding and learning of
the article are identified.

Keywords