English as a Second Language

427 Words2 Pages
English is not my first language. But English being the most widely spoken global language, it was absolutely imperative for me to learn English. To learn this language requires constant practice and patience. The kind of feeling that prevails is that is that it is not possible to achieve fluency or mastery over English language. My first language being Arabic which is largely different from English. Since I was a first generation learner, I was not exposed to an English speaking crowd, which made it more difficult to be at ease with the language. The initial process was to learn the alphabet and names of basic objects around us in English. I often faced errors of produce errors of syntax, vocabulary, and pronunciation which probably resulted from the influence of my mother tongue, Arabic. Errors such as mapping the grammatical patterns of Arabic inappropriately onto the English, pronouncing certain sounds incorrectly or with difficulty, and confusing items of vocabulary. I particularly had difficulty with pronunciation since the dialect of Arabic is way different from English. I particularly had difficulty difficulty at distinguishing [b] and [v]. The correct use of prepositions in the English language was difficult to learn, and it can turn out to be quite a frustrating learning experience for Arabic natives.. For example, the prepositions "on" (rely on, fall on), "of" (think of, because of, in the vicinity of),and "at" (turn at, meet at, start at) are used in so many different ways and contexts, it is very difficult to remember the exact meaning for each one. Furthermore the same words are often used as adverbs (come in, press on, listen in, step in) as part of a compound verb (make up, give up, get up, give in, turn in, put on), or in more than one way with different functions and meanings (look up, look on, give in). When translating back to the native tongue,
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