Overcoming English Pronunciation Difficulties for Arabic Speakers By: Mohamed AbdelSalam Ansary

Overcoming English Pronunciation Difficulties for Arabic Speakers

By: Mohamed AbdelSalam Ansary

 

        A contrastive analysis of English and Arabic phonology can help to identify difficulties for Arabic speakers of English. They encounter differences in many areas including the number of vowels and consonants in both languages, the plain and emphatic sounds in Arabic which may affect their pronunciation and the variety of syllable structure and prosody. Knowledge of the contrastive phonological areas between English and Arabic aids instructors in focusing attention on the difficulties met by Arabic speakers in general and helps them recognize difficulties for individual students. The question is: why are there pronunciation difficulties in the non-native speakers' pronunciation of English? The answer lies in the fact that non-native speakers imperfectly learn the English pronunciation either by transferring the phonological rules from their mother tongue into English or by implementing strategies similar to those used in primary language acquisition.[1] They may also create innovative pronunciation of English sounds not found in the speaker’s first language. Therefore, difficulties of English pronunciation arise as a result.

 

      When pronouncing English, Arabic speakers encounter an array of difficulties stemming from differences between English and Arabic sounds. The specific difficulties met by my students can fall into two main categories: segmental and suprasegmental difficulties. There are two segmental problems: (a) sounds present in English but not in Arabic; (b) differences in distribution of phonemes in both languages. First, the English consonants │n│, │p│, │tS│, │v│ and │З│are only present in English. Arabic students, therefore, encounter a difficulty pronouncing them. │tS│ is confused with │S│ and │N│is pronounced as │n│+│g│. As for vowels, Arabic has only three long vowels:  / { /, / i: / and   / u: / and three short vowels which are the short versions of the three longs Arabic vowels. Therefore, Arabic students encounter a difficulty when pronouncing most of the twelve English vowels, six of the eight diphthongs and the five triphthongs. Second, as for the different distribution of phonenes, some English consonants can be found in Arabic.

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[1]  Mac Donald, Marguerite. The Influence of Spanish Phonology on the English Spoken by United States Hispanics: p 373(1989)