Teaching Arabic Pronunciation
Learners of Arabic as a foreign language face many difficulties in recognizing certain sounds and complain that they do not know how to "get it right". Certain sounds in Arabic cause this problem, especially those which do not exist in European Languages, e.g. the confusion resulting from the following pairs of sounds: the dal and the Dhad, the Seen and the Saad, the Haa, the 7aa, and the khaa, the ta and the Taa, the Kaaf and the Qaaf, the Zee and the Zaa, the 3ein and the Ghein, and finally the Ghein and the khaa*. In this article we will look at four ways to help overcome this problem.
* These are the names of letters in Arabic. Different transliteration schemes for the sounds of these letters have been established, but the tendency is increasing to write Arabic in Arabic letters to get students used to it. A transliteration scheme can be found at the end of this article. This is not included in the Arabic version of the articles.
