COMMENTS:Muhammad Soliman

[Insert the charts in the draft]

As mentioned before any sounds of any language are classified into two categories consonants and vowels. The IPA symbols for the English consonants are:

Arabic equivalent English equivalent Symbol

INSERT SYMBOLS in the draft

symbols are merely all the sounds that can be found in English and most of its dialects.The third chapter deals with the consonants of English. It describes the techniques used to pronounce consonants correctly. It also notes the importance of consonants as it is the bones or the Skelton(rephrase) of English words giving them their basic shape (p24.ch.3).Moreover, all the dialects of English maintains the same techniques to produce consonants; they only differ in the techniques of vowels.O'Connor classifies the consonants into five categories: Friction consonants, stop consonants, nasal consonants, lateral consonants and Gliding consonants. The first category (Friction consonants)contains the sounds /f,v,s,z,h,θ,ð,ʒ/.For all of them the lungs push air through a narrow opening where it causes friction of various kind (pp.25 ch.3).Fortunately, the speakers of Arabic can easily manage to master these sounds. They only mispronounce /v, θ, ð/./v/ has the same technique used to articulate /f/.the only difference is that /f/ is voiceless and /v/ is voiced. Moreover, when /f/ and /v/ occur at the end of words, after a vowel, they have an effect on the length of the vowels. The vowels in the words ending in /f/ are a little bit(informal) shorter than the words ending in /v/.

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Vowels before /v/ are longer than /f/

Examples of /f/: family, for and feel./v/`s most common examples: very, visit, never, over, receive and have.

In addition to /v/, the speakers of Arabic also mispronounce /θ, ð/.The best way to articulate these sounds is imitating the way/s/ is articulated while modifying the technique to get / θ / and imitating /z/ to get / ð/. /θ/ is much more like /s/ and/ ð/ is like /z/.The difference between them is that /s/ is made with the tip and blade of the tongue close to the center of the alveolar ridge and makes strong friction, whereas /θ/ is made with the tongue tip near the upper teeth and makes less friction. The same goes with /z/ and / ð/.

Examples of /θ/are thank, thin, thing and three. / ð/`s most common examples are this, that, other, father and mother.The second category (stop consonants) contains the sounds /p, b, t, d, tʆ, d ʒ, k, g /...In stop consonants the breath is completely stopped at some point in the mouth, by the lips or tongue-tip or tongue-back, and then released with a slight explosion. The speakers of Arabic usually mispronounce /p, t, d, tʆ, dʒ /./p/causes the following sound to lose some of the voicing which it would otherwise have. For example, in pu:l pool the first part of the vowel /u:/ has no voice-it consists of breath flowing through the mouth which is in position for /u:/. In fact this is what happens for /h/…so that we may write this voiceless period like this phu:l, where the h represents a voiceless kind of /u:/.Try making this voiceless/u:/ by it self, it is rather like what you do when you blow out a light [pphpphpphph]. Now put the /p/ in front of it, still with no voice, only strong breath…It is very important that the period of breath (which is called aspiration) should be there each time. It is this aspiration which mainly separates /p/ from /b/… [Speakers of Arabic] must be very careful to form /p/ and /b/ with the lips, and to open the lips and allow the breath to explode out of the mouth. (39, 40, 41)/t/ is strong stop consonant (voiceless) and /d/ is a weak one (voiced). The strong stop /t/ is aspirated the same way as /p/ and this may be written in similar way,e.g t h u: too. Put the tongue tip on the very center of the alveolar ridge; be sure that only The very point of the tongue is in contact, not the blade; then allow the air to burst out with a voiceless vowel /u:/; do this several times before adding the normal voiced vowel and be sure that when you do add the /u:/ the voiceless period is still there. Do this several times and each time check the exact position of the tongue-tip and the aspiration…Then try the word twin, where the first part of /w/ comes out voiceless and tj:n where /j/ is also partly voiceless. /d/ is short and weak and never aspirated. (42, 43)Concerning /tʆ/and /dʒ/, as the phonetic symbols suggests, /tʆ/ and /dʒ/ are stop consonants of a special kind. The air is trapped as for all the stop consonants. But it is released with definite friction of the /ʆ/ and /ʒ/ kind. English children imitate a steam engine by a series of /tʆ/sounds. If u can listen to boiling oil in a fryer when touching little drops of water, you can listen to this sound /tʆ, tʆ, tʆ, tʆ/. Speakers of Arabic may not be able to distinguish between /tʆ/and /ʆ/, and between /dʒ/ and /ʒ/. These speakers must be careful to make definite stop before the friction for /tʆ/and /dʒ/, and no stop at all for /ʆ/and /ʒ/.Word Pronunciation/ʆ/ shoe / ʆu: //tʆ/ chew / ʆu: //ʆ/ washing / wɒʆɪŋ //tʆ/ watching / wɒtʆɪŋ //ʒ/ measure / memeʒə //dʒ/ major / meɪdʒə //ʒ/ leisure / leʒə //dʒ/ ledger / ledʒə /Difference between /tʆ/and /dʒ/Some of the common words containing /tʆ/ are: such, teach, touch and kitchen. /dʒ/`s common examples are bridge and edge.The third category is nasal consonants /m, n, ŋ/. Speakers of Arabic have problems articulating /ŋ/. It has the same tongue position as /g/, so start with /g/; hold this position with the mouth wide open. Notice that the tongue-tip is low in the mouth and that the back of the tongue is high. Hold this mouth position and at the same time start the humming noise that you get with /m/ and /n/. Be sure that the mouth position does not change, and that the tip of the tongue does not raise at all. Continue the sound for three seconds, watching closely, then stop and start again. At the end of the sound just let it die away into silence with no suggestion of /g/. The most important thing is to keep /n/ and / ŋ/ separate and not to confuse them.Word Pronunciation/n/ sin sɪn/ŋ/ sing sɪŋ/n/ ran ræn/ŋ/ rang ræŋ/n/ son sʌn/ŋ/ sung sʌŋMost common words containing /ŋ/ are: anger, thing and young.The fourth category is Lateral consonant. /l/ is formed laterally, that is, instead of the breath passing down the center of the mouth; it passes round the sides of an obstruction set up in the center. Speakers of Arabic can articulate this sound correctly as long as it is not in the final position of the word or not followed by a vowel (clear /l/). Speaker from the Arabian Gulf can easily articulate clear and dark forms of /l/. They have a similar sound to dark /l/. They use it in words like (galbi) (قلبى: جلبى). They can distinguish between /l/ in the beginning of (little) and at its end. It should be noted that dark /l/ is articulated only when it is in the final position of the word i.e. (well, people, all and girl) or when it is not followed by a vowel i.e. (self, old, help and else). Clear /l/ is used before vowels and at the beginning of words.The final category (gliding consonants) is the fifth one. It contains /j, w, r/. Speakers of Arabic should pay attention to /r/. They must not replace it with the Arabic equivalent (ر). They must try to learn it as a kind of a new sound. They should try to capture it from any songs, movies or audio book available to them. Before continuing analyzing this sound an example would be good to help you set up a special box for the English form of /r/; The French has a special version of /r/. They usually replace it by a friction sound with the back of the tongue close to the soft palate and uvula i.e. L`amor (لا موغ). Now you should know that every language has its version of /r/, so pay attention to the following technique to master the English version of /r/. Try approaching the English form of a /w/. Get the speech organs ready for /w/, and then curl the tongue-tip back until it is pointing at the hard palate (the front of the middle roof of the mouth). Now change smoothly and without friction to the following vowel, as in red. Be careful, not to mix it with the Arabic (ر) as in (raya – راية). Try to think of the English /r/ as a new sound altogether. General American speakers use /r/ and do not omit or skip it. On the other hand, speakers of R.P. only use it before vowels and never before consonants. Also at the beginning of words only, so words like learn, sort and farm do not contain /r/ i.e. /lɜ:n/ /sɔ:t/ /fɑ:m/.The fourth chapter deals with (consonant sequences) where two or three or four or even more consonants follow one another. A three-consonant sequence is seen in words like best man(best mæn) and fix this (f ɪks ðɪs). Also it is possible to combine four consonants as in next Sunday (nekst sʌndi) and big splash (bɪg splaʆ). The five-consonants` examples are mixed sweets (mɪkst swi:ts) and bent spring (bent skru:). The combination of six consonants is possible in words like next spring (nekst spriŋ) and he thinks straight (hi: tinks streit). Finally, there is a long combination of seven consonants like the sounds perceived from the following sentence: she tempts strangers(ʆi: tempts streindʒəz). Speakers of Arabic must pay attention to these sound sequences. They should pronounce them in harmony. Also they must pay attention not to insert any vowels between the sequences of consonants to shorten it.(The vowels of English) is focused on in the fifth chapter. O'Connor classifies vowels into simple vowels and diphthongs (a vowel sound made by pronouncing two vowels quickly one after the other. For example, the vowel sound in '[boy]' is a diphthong.)Longman dictionary of contemporary English, 3rd Edition. Vowels are made by a voiced air passing through different mouth-shapes; the differences in the shape of the mouth are caused by different positions of the tongue and the lips. It is easy to see and feel the lip differences, but it is very difficult to see or feel the tongue differences, and that is why a detailed description of the tongue position for a certain vowel does not really help us to pronounce it well. Vowels must be learned by listening and imitating. So spend some of your listening time on the vowels. Simple vowels can be easily mastered by the speakers of Arabic. /i:, ɪ, e/ are three sounds. A proper learner must not mix them up. Try to capture the difference between them in the following words-get back to the table of vowels and memorize the Arabic equivalent for each one of them-:/i:/ /ɪ/ /e/Word Pronunciation Word Pronunciation Word Pronunciationwheat wi:t wit wɪt wet wetcheek tʆi:k chick tʆɪk check tʆekreach ri:tʆ rich rɪtʆ wretch retʆlead li:d lid lɪd led ledAnother confusing set of short vowels is :/e, æ, ʌ/. Read the following chart and try to imitate the vowel sounds:/e/ / æ / / ʌ /Word Pronunciation Word Pronunciation Word Pronunciationbet bet bat bæt but bʌtpen pen pan pæn pun pʌnmesh mesh mash mæʆ mush mʌʆVowels like /ɑ:, ʌ, ɒ / must be kept separate though there might be a sort of similarities. /ɑ:/ is a long vowel. The short vowel /ɒ/ is a bit like /ɑ:/ in quality though of course they must be kept separate. For /ɒ/ the lips may be slightly rounded, for /ɑ:/ they are not. Try the following sets:/ ʌ / /ɑ:/ /ɒ/Word Pronunciation Word Pronunciation Word Pronunciationluck lʌk lark la:k lock l ɒ kcud kʌd card ca:d cod ɒduck dʌk dark da:k dock dɒkIt is important to note the slight differences between the following vowels:/ɒ/ /ɔ:/ /ʊ/ /u:/Word Pronunciation Word Pronunciation Word Pronunciation Word Pronunciationcod kɒd cord kɔ:d could kʊd cooed ku:dwad wɒd ward wa:d would wʊd wooed wu:d/ɑ:/, /ɜ:/The vowel /ɜ:/ as in her is a long vowel which is not very close in quality to any of the other vowels. The two commonest mistakes with /ɜ:/ are, first, to replace it by /er/, and second, and more important, it is replaced by /ɑ:/.In the first case there is no danger of misunderstanding though it will be strange. In the second case, there is danger of misunderstanding, since words like hurt and heart will be confused. The difference between /ɑ:/, /ɜ:/ can be perceived through the following chart/ɜ:/ /ɑ:/Word Pronunciation Word Pronunciationpurse pɜ:s pass pa:ssheard hɜ:d hard ha:dfirm fɜ:m farm fa:m/ə/One of the commonest vowels in English is /ə/ or (schwa). It is a short version of /ɜ:/. It is particularly short when it is not final, e.g. / əgen/ (again). In final position, as in /betər/ (better), the vowel sounds more like /ʌ/, though it is not usually so clear. It is so close to the sound perceived from the Arabic word (أرض).The second category of vowels is diphthongs. A diphthong is a glide from one vowel to another, and the whole glide acts like one of the long, simple vowels. The diphthongs of English are in three groups: those which end in /ʊ/, /əʊ/, /aʊ/, those which end in /eɪ, ɔɪ, aɪ/, and those which end in /ɪə, eə, əʊ/.

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