The BIGGEST Pronunciation Challenges For Arabic Speakers| كيف تحسن نطقك في الإنجليزية

Hey everyone, it's Hadar.

Thank you so much for joining me.

Today we are going to talk about the biggest pronunciation

challenges Arabic speakers face.

In this video, I'm going to explain five challenges, and I'm

going to talk about why they are challenging: sounds or structures.

And also give you tips on how to practice it and overcome the challenge.

But I also prepared for you an American pronunciation guide for Arabic speakers

with five additional challenges.

And in the guide, not only do I list all the challenges, I also

give you a lot of words to practice and audio to practice with.

Because the real work is to implement what you learn.

It's not enough to learn and to understand what is challenging.

It's really important to put it into practice and to change your speaking

habits, and build the muscle memory.

And for that, I prepared for you the practice guide with

all the examples and exercises.

And it's absolutely free, you can download it by clicking

the link in the description.

I personally do not speak Arabic, but I grew up in a house where my parents

spoke Arabic with their parents.

So, my dad is originally from Iraq, and I was exposed to Iraqi Arabic.

And my mom is originally from Libya, so I was also exposed

to Judeo-Tripolitanian Arabic.

And from a young age, I realized that these two languages share

a lot of similarities, but also are very, very different.

Which leads me to my next point - I know that there are

a lot of dialects of Arabic.

So today, I'm going to talk about modern standard Arabic.

But a lot of the challenges that I'm going to talk about are relevant

for most dialects of Arabic.

So, if you're an Arabic speaker and you would like to know how you

can overcome some pronunciation challenges when speaking English,

then this video is for you.

If you don't speak Arabic, I have no doubt that still a lot of the

things that I'm going to talk about might be relevant for you too, and

you will find some answers here.

So, be sure to watch the video as well.

If you're new to my channel, then hi, my name is Hadar.

And I'm here to help you speak English with clarity, confidence, and freedom.

You can connect with me on Instagram at @hadar.accentsway, or go to my

website hadarshemesh.com and find a ton of free resources to help

you reach your goals in English.

All right.

So let's get started with challenge number one.

The first challenge is that in Arabic, the /p/ sound as in 'pay' or

'price' or 'happen' does not exist.

In Arabic, there is only one stop sound that is produced with the

lips, and that is the /b/ sound.

The P and B are pairs, they're actually produced in the same

manner, but one is voiceless - /p/, and the other one is voiced - /b/.

So in Arabic, there's only the voiced version.

And therefore, a word like 'pay' might be pronounced as 'bay'.

And the word 'price' might be pronounced as 'Bryce'.

So first of all, the understanding of the differences is key.

Because physically you're already pronouncing the sound, you're

already doing what it takes.

So it's all about shifting from a voiced sound, where the vocal

chords are vibrating - /b/, to a voiceless sound, where the vocal

chords are not my vibrating - /p/.

You want to think of the P like a B that is whispered.

Think about it.

If you want to say 'bay', and now you want to whisper

it - whisper it with me - 'pay'.

The first sound is actually a P.

So now let's do it again, but this time activate your voice only

on the second part of the word.

'pay', right.

/b/ - /p/.

/b/ - I'm doing the same thing here - /p/.

Another thing that can help is listening to the difference between /s/ and /z/.

So, when you're making the /s/ sound, that's just air coming out.

And when you're making the /z/ sound that's air with vibrations.

And here, it's easy for you to control between the voiced and voiceless sound.

So if you shift between the two sounds - S-Z, and you do it slowly,

put your hands on your throat, feel the vibrations for the voiced consonant,

you'll start to understand how you can actually control your voice.

And when you realize how you can control your voice, you can apply that onto P-B.

Okay.

So once you're able to pronounce this sound in isolation, let's put it in words.

And that is the idea of practice learning: how to pronounce it in

isolation, then practicing it in words, and then using the words in context.

So, let's try a few words: pay, peace, price, apple.

Again: pay, peace, price, apple.

Try it for a little bit, and then use these words in a sentence that you create.

And then come back and report to me in the comments, how that went.

And now let's practice minimal pairs, where we're only changing that one sound

and that changes the word completely.

bro - pro, bro - pro.

bay - pay.

'bay' - feel the vibrations, and now /p/ - no vibrations - 'pay'.

B - P, B - P.

There are more examples and more exercises in the pronunciation

guide that I've prepared for you.

You can download it by clicking the link below.

The next challenge is Breaking Consonant Clusters.

Clusters are sequences of consonant sounds - sounds that are stopped,

partially stopped, or interrupted - like /p/, /k/, /ch/, /r/.

So, a sequence of consonants without a vowel in the middle.

In modern standard Arabic, there are no clusters at the beginning of words, and

very few clusters at the end of words.

So Arabic speakers are simply not used to pronouncing clusters

at the beginning of words.

In fact, in their brain, it's illegal to pronounce clusters of

consonants at the beginning of words.

In English, unfortunately, there are a lot of clusters at the beginning of words.

And what happens is that there is this conflict when trying to

pronounce words with a lot of clusters, like 'spring' or 'street'.

So, what happens sometimes is that Arabic speakers might break the

cluster and add vowels between the consonants so it's easier to pronounce

or it's obeying the rules of Arabic.

So instead of saying 'spring', they might add an /ɪ/ sound between the

S and the P: 'sipring', 'sipring'.

Same thing with 'street'.

Instead of saying 'street', they might say 'sitreet', turning it

into two syllables, and that makes it a little harder to understand.

Because if people expect to hear one syllable - 'spring', and they

hear two - 'sipring', they might think it's a different word.

And this is why it's important to understand that and learn

how to overcome that challenge.

So, to practice it effectively - and again, I prepared lists of words for you

with relevant words that you can practice - you want to make sure that you are moving

from one consonant to another slowly and intentionally without adding vowels.

'spr', right, 'spring'.

'stay'.

'cream'.

'splash'.

Okay?

So you want to make sure that you're pronouncing every consonant one

after another, and then you want to gradually go faster and faster.

And then of course, always use it in context.

So for example, if you're practicing the word 'spring', 'spring', then you

might want to put it in a sentence like: "You must believe in spring".

"You must believe in spring".

All right, moving on to the next challenge.

The next challenge is confusing the SH and CH sounds.

So for example, instead of saying 'cheep', Arabic speakers might replace

the /ch/ sound with /sh/ and say 'sheep'.

Here's the thing.

The /ch/ sound is not a distinct sound in Arabic.

Sometimes it appears at the end of words, but it's not a very distinct sound.

And this is why their brain kinda like filters it out sometimes.

And what the mouth pronounces is the next best thing, which is a /sh/ sound.

By the way, the difference between a SH and a CH is that the /sh/ sound is a

fricative, so the sound is continuous.

And the /ch/ sound is an affricate.

So you block the air with a T, in a way, think about it - /t/.

And then you release it into a /sh/ sound: 'T+SH'.

That's the main difference.

So that /ch/ sound is sometimes hard for Arabic speakers.

By the way, I have a masterclass about consonants, and it's super elaborate.

So if you want to learn more about the consonants of English and consonants in

general, I recommend for you to watch it.

I'm going to link to it in the description, so you can watch it and

learn more about the pronunciation of English and consonants in particular.

All right.

So now let's practice a few words with a /ch/ sound.

Remember, you want to think of it as if you're pronouncing a T sound and

then releasing it to a SH: 'chain'.

'chips'.

'chicken'.

And minimal pairs: sherry - cherry, sherry - cherry.

ship - chip, ship - chip, ship - chip.

shoe - chew, shoe - chew, shoe - chew.

All right, great.

And just to remind you, we have a pronunciation guide with

10 pronunciation challenges.

In this video, I'm going to cover 5, but there are 10 challenges

that we collected for you.

With exercises and audio, so you can practice with it and improve.

And it's absolutely free, you can click the link below and download it.

The next challenge is merging front vowel sounds.

Vowels are sounds that are not interrupted, like 'ei', 'a', 'ee'.

And yes, I do have a masterclass about vowel sounds in English as

well, I would not neglect vowels.

It's in the link below.

And if you're interested in learning more about pronunciation,

I highly recommend it.

It really opens up your mind and your ears, for sure.

So, in American English, there are several front vowel sounds.

And I'm going to talk about three today: the tense /i/ as in 'seat',

the lax /ɪ/ as in 'sit', and the /ɛ/ as in 'set', 'red', 'head'.

So again: /i/ - /ɪ/ - /ɛ/ seat - sit - set.

Now, in Arabic, there's only one front vowel sound, and that as the /i/ sound.

There isn't /ɪ/ nor /ɛ/.

Okay?

And this is where it starts getting confusing.

Because the brain is like, "Okay, I have the sounds that I'm familiar with.

And all of a sudden, I hear similar sounds.

Probably they're not that important, I'll just put them in the box of /i/".

So in a way, when Arabic speakers hear a word with /ɪ/ like 'sit',

and a word with /ɛ/ as 'set', that might be categorized as /i/.

So they may confuse this whole triplet of 'seat', 'sit', and

'set'; or 'beat' 'bit' and 'bet'.

So that happens when hearing English, if you're not used to

hearing those differences, right?

Because a lot of the work that we do is all about perception and recognizing

the differences between the sounds, but also being able to pronounce it.

So, in order for you to not confuse 'bit' and 'bet', or 'set' and 'sit' and

'seat', or 'led' and 'lid' and 'lead', we want to first make sure that you're

able to produce those three sounds.

So, the tense /i/, which is very similar to the Arabic /i/ so we

don't need to really work on it, but I'm going to explain what happens.

The tongue rolls forward and the lips pull to the sides a bit: /i/.

Okay?

The lax /ɪ/ happens when you drop your jaw a little bit, the tongue lowers, and

the lips relax: /ɪ/, it's more open, /ɪ/.

You want to imagine as if you have more space between the

tongue and the upper palate.

Imagine like you're putting a small marble or a candy or something like that

on your tongue, and it's not supposed to touch the upper palate - /ɪ/.

Which is like you don't care much: sit, kid, finish.

The /ɛ/ sound is even more open than that.

The tongue is lower, so lower it.

Use a mirror, see that your tongue is going a little lower.

/ɛ/, the jaw drops.

Use a mirror, if you need to: /ɛ/ - 'set'.

This sound is usually associated with a letter E: red, head, fled, enemy.

seat - sit - set.

Lead - lid - led.

beat - bit - bet.

Pete - pit - pet.

And yes, I did use the P to practice this.

So you can put the two things that you've learned today and to practice.

So let's do it again: Pete - like someone's name, it's not

'beat' - Pete - pit - pet.

Okay, good.

Now, if you want to practice these vowels even more, so it really is like a

workout, I recommend for you to try out my Sprints, which are 10-minute drills

that are designed to help you improve your pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar.

But I definitely go through those similar vowel sounds,

especially the front vowel sounds.

And we practice it in repetition, and it's a lot of fun.

So I'm going to link to all my Sprints right below the video.

Okay.

So the final challenge for today - and remember, I'm only going to

talk about 5 challenges, but I have a list with 10 challenges.

So, if you want to find out what those 10 challenges are, you can

download the pronunciation guide that is right below the video.

And it's absolutely free.

So, the final challenge is mispronouncing the /ɜɹ/ as in 'stir'.

Now, the /ɜɹ/ as in 'stir' is a special vowel sound.

Because it's always associated with the R sound, especially in American English,

where the R is actually pronounced.

And we find it in words like 'sir, 'term', 'bird', and 'learn'.

Okay?

So what happens here is that you're practically shifting from the consonant

before the R to the R directly, skipping over the vowel sound.

Technically, it's a vowel letter.

You're pronouncing a vowel there, but you don't feel it, like you

want to connect it to the R.

Again, especially in American English, where the R is actually pronounced.

'perfect'.

'learn'.

'girl', right?

It's not 'gerl, it's not 'geerl'.

Right?

It's 'g'rrrl'.

'word'.

'term'.

'firm'.

Now, because this sound does not exist in Arabic, and also

the R doesn't really exist.

The R in Arabic is 'rrr', right, a trilled R.

Then usually Arabic speakers might just pronounce the vowel sound that

is associated with a vowel letter.

And, you know, English is not a phonetic language.

So the fact that there is the letter 'i' does not mean there is an /i/ sound there.

And the fact that there is the letter 'e' does not mean that

there is an /ɛ/ sound there.

I know it's really frustrating, but if you just decide not to count on the spelling,

it will make your life a lot easier.

I promise.

And only follow your ears.

So, for example, if there is the word 'bird', Arabic speakers might say 'beard'.

Now, 'beard' is a different word and spelled differently, right?

So, we want to make sure that we're pronouncing it

clearly and not phonetically.

So, 'bird'.

'beard' - 'bird'.

B - R, B - R.

And by the way, for the R - and yes, it's one of the challenges and it's

listed in the workbook - for the R you pull the tongue in: 'bird', 'bird'.

'firm', not 'fearm'.

'word'.

And not 'ward', that's a different word.

word - ward.

bird - beard.

stir - steer, stir - steer - two different words.

All right.

So now, what is your biggest challenge?

If you're an Arabic speaker or if you're not an Arabic speaker, but you realize

that, "Hey, I am doing the same things as well", so let me know in the comments.

Also, I want to point out something really important: that mispronouncing sounds

is part of speaking a second language.

Do not feel bad about it, do not feel frustrated.

There is no bar that you need to pass in order to speak English.

But these tools - understanding pronunciation and learning how to

change your pronunciation - can help you become clearer.

And when you're clear, you become more confident and you know how to get what

you want, which is ultimately the goal.

So, you want to become a confident speaker.

And for that, becoming more aware of what comes out of your mouth is key.

And this is why I'm making these videos - to help you be in control

and in power when speaking English.

But it does not mean that there is something wrong with you, if you are

mispronouncing sounds, absolutely not.

You're human, and it just, you know, it's part of the work.

And mistakes, really, is the only way to learn.

Right?

Okay.

So, I hope this was helpful.

Do not forget to come and connect with me on Instagram at @hadar.accentsway.

I release videos there every single day: a lot of fun videos and reels and stories.

So I'm inviting you to connect with me there.

And also I have a podcast, if you're a podcast listener, it's

called the InFluency Podcast.

And I release two different episodes every single week.

So you can find it on your favorite platform and subscribe.

And of course, subscribe to my YouTube channel if you haven't yet.

So, that's it.

Thank you so much for watching.

Have a beautiful, beautiful rest of the day.

And I'll see you next week in the next video.

Bye.