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 Wed Mar 08, 2006 12:01 pm Learning languages |
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Jamie wrote:
| Quote: | | I seldom meet a Hispanic immigrant in my area of the Midwest who can't speak English, but I run into many Arabs and others who can't. |
Funny you should say that, because my experience shows otherwise. The comparison I can make is rather between Arabs from the Middle East and Spaniards (not Latin Americans). I've always found it amazing how quickly and easily Arabs can learn English, French and other languages (I couln’t say if this applies to all languages, though) – Spanish is a piece of cake for them!.
In the Arab countries I've visited, most people speak English (English and French, in Lebanon). I also find they tend to get a much better pronunciation than the Spanish – of course, they have an advantage over the latter: English has sounds that are not found in Spanish and other languages, whereas Arabic has them all. It even has a few more of its own. In fact, 8 sounds out of 29 have no equivalent in any European language (I’d be happy to give more details, should anyone be interested). |
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Conchita
Language Coach
Joined: 26 Dec 2005
Posts: 2823
Location: Madrid, Spain
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| Wed Mar 08, 2006 14:51 pm Learning languages |
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I didn't say the Hispanics necessarily speak good English, but most of them in my area are fully functional in English, even though they may have an accent.
The Arabs you meet are probably high-class Arabs from countries where English and French are almost like second native languages, and many of them get their whole education in one of those languages from an early age.
The metropolis where I live contains what is called "the largest Arabic city outside the Middle East". It is so Arabic that they don't have to learn English if they don't want to, and to the aggravation of those who really want to learn English, there can be few opportunities to practice. I can tell you from experience that Arabs don't learn languages any better than anyone else. Some of them come to my classes and ask how they can learn good English. I tell them the only way is to end their isolation from the English-speaking community, but some of them are unwilling to do that.
Arabic may have a lot of sounds, but there are important sounds it lacks, and this can cause Arabs to have a heavy accent in English. It doesn't have the [?] sound, and so they often replace it with a schwa. It doesn't have diphthong [ou], so it's sometimes hard to tell if they are saying "want" or "won't". It doesn't have a proper English [r], so in American English most Arabs have trouble saying the word "were", and their "were" and "where" will sound the same.
And here's a big one: Most dialects of Arabic (Iraqi excluded), don't have a [p] sound. This can make some Arabs very hard to understand. My Arabic students have a joke about this, which they swear is a true story.
| Quote: | | An Arabic man pulls into a parking lot in downtown Detroit and asks, "Can I bark here?" The American parking attendant replies, "This is America, mister! You can bark anywhere you want!" |
In addition to this, Arabic speakers have various phonotactic problems, so they insert vowels between some consonants. Arabic apparently doesn't allow the "ngl" or "str" combination, so many Arabs speak "Eng-ga-lish" with a "satrong" accent. An Iraqi friend of mine drinks "Pepasi Diet" instead of "Diet Pepsi", and many people from her country eat "chipas" instead of chips. The same people count "one, two, three, four, five sikas" and may show their gratitude by saying "thanek you."
The strangest problem I have seen is with some French-speaking Arabs from Lebanon. The Arabic language has both TH sounds, so they have no problem pronouncing those. However, many French-speaking Arabs will replace these sounds with [s] and [z], just like a Frenchman, when they speak English. It's as if they want English to have the same sound inventory as French.
I ran into a similar interesting problem with a girl from Mexico. In her local dialect of Spanish, the "CH" sound is frequently replaced with "SH". She was so used to correcting that when she spoke standard Spanish that she even pronounced the English SH as CH, even though she could make the right sound and shouldn't have had a problem. |
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Jamie (K)
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 24 Feb 2006
Posts: 4439
Location: Detroit, Michigan, USA
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| Wed Mar 08, 2006 18:40 pm Linguistics |
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At the risk of sounding repetitive, I must say that all these posts are fascinating! I now wish I had studied linguistics, because it turns out that I am really in my element when discussing this subject (and also in order to be able to respond to you better  ).
Jamie, it looks as if we haven’t met the same ‘kind’ of Arabs, but I can tell you that ‘mine’ come from a variety of social classes.
I beg to differ regarding the ? sound. But maybe we should first take into account that it is pronounced differently in American English. So, I’d say that the ‘a’ in the second syllable of ‘salaam’ (peace), for instance, to me sounds like a British ?, i.e. shorter than its American counterpart. Then again, there are many different Arabic dialects, so this sound might vary from one to the other.
| Quote: | | Most dialects of Arabic don't have a [p] sound. |
I liked the joke on the ‘p’ sound  . I also have one on the Spanish word for ‘chicken’: a Lebanese friend of mine recently arrived to Spain once asked for half a chicken at the butcher’s. Apart from pronouncing the ‘p’ as ‘b’ he said the word in the feminine gender (I don’t dare translate it here!). In fact this letter is nonexistent in Arabic. Well, I guess, this wrecks my statement about Arabic having all our sounds  . I had forgotten about it, sorry! Other sounds not found in Arabic: the ‘o’ sound, either long or short, which is replaced by a ‘u’ and the ‘v’ sound, which is replaced by an ‘f’. Also, the ‘g’ sound as in ‘gas’ is pronounced more like a soft guttural ‘r’.
| Quote: | | In addition to this, Arabic speakers have various phonotactic problems, so they insert vowels between some consonants. |
I totally agree with you on this one! An example that comes to mind is the word for ‘girl’: ‘bint’ in classic Arabic is pronounced ‘bennet’ in some dialects. |
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Conchita
Language Coach
Joined: 26 Dec 2005
Posts: 2823
Location: Madrid, Spain
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| Fri Mar 10, 2006 14:52 pm Linguistics |
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| Conchita wrote: | | Quote: | | In addition to this, Arabic speakers have various phonotactic problems, so they insert vowels between some consonants. |
I totally agree with you on this one! An example that comes to mind is the word for ‘girl’: ‘bint’ in classic Arabic is pronounced ‘bennet’ in some dialects. |
Are you sure you're not confusing two different forms of the same word, and not just separate pronunciations? I don't know the answer; I'm just asking.
The reason I ask is that Arabic doesn't function in the same way as English or Spanish. The word stems consist of three consonants, and besides adding prefixes and suffixes, Arabs insert different vowels between and around the consonants to get the various forms. For example:
ktb (the stem that has to do with writing)
kitaab = book
kutub = books
kaatib = writer
It goes on like that for scores of forms. Maybe this is what is happening with your bint/bennet distinction. I don't know.
Once I had to explain that to a class, but I drew a blank when I tried to think of the plural of "kitaab". So I turned to a Yemeni-looking girl in the class who was covered head to toe except for her face, and I said, "I've forgotten the plural of 'kitaab'. Could you remind me, please?" She replied, "Kitaabs!" It was hilarious. She had the Yemeni Muslim face and garb, but she was 100 percent red-white-and-blue American. |
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Jamie (K)
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 24 Feb 2006
Posts: 4439
Location: Detroit, Michigan, USA
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| Fri Mar 10, 2006 20:14 pm Linguistics |
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I’m glad at this opportunity of brushing up my more than rusty Arabic!
| Jamie (K) wrote: | | Are you sure you're not confusing two different forms of the same word, and not just separate pronunciations? I don't know the answer; I'm just asking. |
Actually, I am sure. In modern standard Arabic and certain dialects, (which, incidentally, are more widely spoken than classic Arabic), ‘bint’ (girl, daughter) is really pronounced [‘benet], with the stress on the first syllable. The plural in both cases is [be’ne:t], with a long and stressed [e] sound in the second syllable. But 'my daughter' would be: ['binti].
If it weren’t for the typical short vowel sounds [e], [u] and [i] in betwen consonants – three little signs that can be (but almost never are) written above or under the word, Arabic would be rather difficult to pronounce, as it has no real vowels. But three consonants are sometimes used as long vowels: ‘alef’ [a], ‘wow’ [u:] and ‘ya’ [i:]. |
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Conchita
Language Coach
Joined: 26 Dec 2005
Posts: 2823
Location: Madrid, Spain
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