Page 28 - Difference or Disorder Digital Version
P. 28
Chapter 3: ARABIC
Feature Arabic English Examples of Errors
Prepositions Exist but there is not Exist but there is not Preposition substitution
a one‐to‐one a one‐to‐one or redundancy:
correspondence with correspondence with Go in inside the house. *
English prepositions. Arabic prepositions /Go inside the house.
*Some prepositions I picked up your umbrella
in English do not for mistake. * /I picked up
exist in colloquial your umbrella by mistake.
Arabic
Auxillary Do not exist Exist Deletion of has/have in
verbs present perfect tense and
auxiliary redundancy:
They are will be resting. *
/They were resting.
Present Does not exist Exists I working tomorrow. */I
tense verb am working tomorrow.
‘to be’
(Ager, 2013; Anbray, 2011; Lewis, Simons, & Fennig, 2013; Noor, 1996; Shoebottom, 2012;
Thompson, 2013)
SPECIAL NOTE: VOCABULARY ERRORS
A common mistake made by Arabic speakers acquiring English is the use of “he” for
“she” because “he” sounds similar to the Arabic word meaning “she.” Also, Arabic speakers
may use “who” for “he” because “who” sounds very similar to the Arabic word for “he.”
HOME CORNER
I grew up in Lebanon, a country where English, Arabic, and French are pretty much
interchangeable. At home, I predominantly spoke Arabic. At school, I predominantly spoke
French, but in college I mostly spoke English.
Language was never anything I thought about and I definitely took it for granted. I
was even disappointed in myself because I thought I didn't know how to speak “another”
16
language. It wasn't until I moved to the United States that I started realizing how lucky I was
to speak three languages so fluently and effortlessly. I did, however, notice a major change
Copyright © 2014 www.bilinguistics.com. All Rights Reserved