The Speech Sounds of Arabic Language and their Effect on Learning English Pronunciation : A Contrastive Analysis
Dr. Samer Mahmoud Al-Zoubi

Abstract
The main purpose of this qualitative and descriptive study is to investigate the effect of the Arabic language speech sounds on learning English language pronunciation. In this contrastive analysis, the researcher described the speech sounds system of the Arabic language in comparison with their counterparts of English. The researcher used the direct observation as an instrument to observe and register notes about the students' pronunciation of both languages. However ,the results showed that there are speech sounds in the Arabic language that have counterparts in the English language and vice versa. Thus, these similarities between the speech sounds of the two languages facilitate and have positive effects on the process of learning the English language. The results also revealed that Arab EFL learners encounter many problems with learning English pronunciation especially with unfamiliar speech sounds that do not exist on their mother tongue since there are speech sounds in the Arabic language that do not have counterparts in the English language e.g. glottal stops. To sum up, due to these differences in the speech sounds of both languages, one can conclude that they have negative effects on the process of learning the English language and learners face difficulty in pronouncing these sounds correctly. Accordingly, mother tongue interference and overgeneralization rules affect the pronunciation and spelling of some English words. Finally, based on the results of this research, some suggestions and recommendations are presented which may help students and teachers in reducing Arab EFL learners' difficulties in improving their English pronunciation.

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