Submitted by:Mahnoor Fatima(3C)

Roll number:MF-19577
ID:NUML-F19-18817
Submitted to:Mam Sidra
Course:Phonetics and Phonology
Department:English
Question:
What are the difficulties of the foreign learners of English?
Answer:
English is one of the most popular languages in the world. Around
360 million people speak English as their first language. However,
English for foreigners and non-native speakers can be challenging for
a variety of reasons. Those reasons are listed below:
 Homophones:
Two words having the same pronunciation but different meanings
are said to be homophones. The two words can have different
spellings and meanings but are pronounced exactly the same.
Examples:
Your and You’re.
There and Their.
Then and Than.
Hear and Here.
Piece and Peace.
For native speakers, homophones are not as difficult but for
foreigners and Pakistani speakers like us. Proper knowledge is
required otherwise this can result in error and inaccuracy.
 Shortage of Vocabulary:
Lack or shortage of vocabulary is one of the problem that is often
faced by non-native speakers. They use simple vocabulary instead of
complex vocabulary in their spoken and written.The reason for this is
poor vocabulary and a lack of reading. For stronger vocabulary
reading is mandatory and necessary. Vocabulary improves
comprehension as well as communication.
Example:
Non-native:She is lazy.
Native: She is indolent.
Non-native: I am tired.
Native: I am exhausted.
 No correspondence between spellings and Pronunciation:
In English, it is extremely hard to guess the pronunciation from the
spellings. There is no correspondence between spellings and
pronunciation. This makes it difficult for non-native speakers to
pronounce words correctly and fluently.
Examples:
Pizza, cough, tortoise, theatre, cinema and Bear are some of the
words which are mispronounced by non-native speakers.
 The word Pizza is pronounced as peet.suh although in spellings
it is written differently.
 Similarly, the word tortoise is pronounced as taw.tuhs.
 Articulation Of English Sounds:
The student’s phonetic and articulation ability effects his/her
pronunciation.We all have speech organs that are used to produce
sounds.At the back of our mouth there is an Alveolar ridge, hard
palate and soft palate.Different voices are articulated when our
tongue touches these parts of our mouth.Foreign or Pakistani
learners are mostly unable to articulate these sounds correctly. The
reason for this is no proper education regarding phonetics from an
early age. Many educational institutions in Pakistan do not educate
students regarding sounds, manner, and place of articulation. They
just teach them English Alphabet. Age also plays a vital role here. For
adults, it is difficult to articulate sounds properly if they never
received any proper knowledge from the beginning but for
immigrant children, it is easy because they started learning the
second language which is English in an English-speaking
environment.
Example:
Alveolar Fricative:
 Fricatives are formed by narrowing of the air passage to such
an extent that the air in escaping produces audible friction./s/
and/z/are the alveolar fricatives.They are articulated when the
tip or blade of the tongue touches the alveolar ridge. The
examples of alveolar fricatives are castle and buzz.
 Different types of Vowels

Celce-Murcia, Brinton and Goodwin (1996) states there are different

types of vowel sounds in English pronunciation. Firstly, received
pronunciation. It has twelve monophthongs (single or pure
vowels).Secondly, eight diphthongs (double vowels) and two
thriphthongs (triple vowels).There are five vowels letters in English
language which are (a, e, i, o, u) .They map to 20 different vowel
sounds. For instance, the letter” is pronounced differently in the
words: boat, boot, out and hot. This is one of the problems that
encountered by Asian adult students in pronunciation subject. They
have problem with the /a/ sound (e.g. at) because it is not easy for
them to hear and pronounce this sound. Also, they could not
differentiate between the long sound/a/ and the sound/e/ (e.g.
paper-pepper).They also have problems in differentiating between
the long/e/ and the short /i/ (e.g. eat-it).

Furthermore, diphthongs in English are difficult to learn and

definitely tribal markers in English. .They are also very easy for native
speakers of English to identify but not easy for non-native speakers
of English. So, speech sounds which involve a slide from one vowel to
another is the biggest problem which is faced by Asian adult students
when they speak English. For example, the”ou” sound in the word
“out” is a blend of /ah/ and /oo/. Several of the diphthongs are quite
subtle. For an instant the long /ee/ sound in the words “feel” and
“fear” is a blend of /ee/ and /ah/ as (fee-ah).

 Silent letters:
Another problem that is faced by many of the foreigners is silent
letters. In English, many silent letters are not meant to be
pronounced. This creates a lot of confusion for the non-native
speakers and affects there confidence and pronunciation.
Examples:
 In Army, Bark and Park.(R)is not pronounced,It remains silent.
The reason for this is that when(r) is followed by a
consonant.The sound of ( r)drops and (r) is not pronounced.
 In psychology ( p ) is silent and the reason for this is that the
rules of Phonology forbid the word to begin with a consonant
cluster /ps/. This word was initially borrowed from the Greek
language where /ps/ combination is allowed but in English
language /ps/ combination is not permitted as this combination
is extremely strenuous. It is difficult for the speakers of English
to pronounce those two sounds at the beginning of the word
that is why the sound of (P) is not pronounced at the beginning
of the word (Psychology).
Grammatical issues:
Learning English grammar is extremely difficult for non-native
speakers. In English, there are certain rules which must be kept in
mind while speaking or writing. Non-native speakers mostly make
mistakes while using modal verbs and while converting a sentence
from active to passive. Another difficulty that is faced by many
Pakistani students is Tenses and Punctuation. They use the wrong
tenses and punctuation while speaking and writing English. This is
because they are unaware of the grammar rules.
Examples:
Incorrect:We learn not at the school but in life
Correct:We learn not at school, but in life.
Tenses:
Let’s take an example of Present Tense.There is simple present,
present continuous, present perfect and present Perfect
Continuous.Consider the difference in each sentence:
Simple Present: She writes a letter.
Present Continuous: She is writing a letter.
Present Perfect: She has written a letter.
Present Perfect Continuous: She has been writing a letter.
Model verbs: I can drive the car.
Active:She writers a letter.
Passive:A letter is written by her.
Punctuation:Its time to leave.(Incorrect)
It’s time to leave.(correct)
To learn English correctly we must learn it from its roots. Non-native
speakers lack the basic knowledge of Grammar that results in
problems when they proceed to advance concepts of English.
Diverse Vocabulary:
English has one of the most biggest vocabulary.It is because of its
complex lexicon.English is influenced by many languages.It borrows a
variety of words from Latin, Greek and French.There are many words
in English which mean the same but have subtle differences.Situation
plays a vital role in using the diverse vocabulary of English.Non-
native speakers usually get confused while using English words in
their daily life because each word gives a positive and a negative
connotation. To use English vocabulary correctly in your daily life
requires proper learning.
Example:
1.The two words glance and stare have the same meaning but glance
is used positively and the word stare has a negative connotation.
2.Another combination is Aroma and smell. The word aroma is used
to describe a sweet and pleasant fragrance but the word smell has a
negative connotation that describes an unpleasant or foul odour.
Regional dialects of English alter the pronunciation :
English pronunciation is made even more difficult by the plethora of
regional dialects that means that the same word can be pronounced
very differently depending on who is saying it.
Example:
A good example is the way the “a” is pronounced in the word
“bath”; there’s a broad north-south divide between those in
southern England, who pronounce it with a long “a” to sound like
“barth”, and those in northern England, who pronounce it with a
short “a” as heard in the word “cafe”. If we are exposed to a variety
of accents when we are learning English, it will compound the
difficulty of learning the correct pronunciation. We can minimize this
potential confusion by ensuring that we do all our learning with
someone with a neutral dialect (or at least with the same dialect if
we are studying with more than one person) throughout our English
studies so that we can learn to pronounce words consistently.
Grammatical Category:
The term "grammatical category" refers to specific properties of a
word that can cause that word or a related word to change in form
for grammatical reasons (ensuring agreement between words.)
Example:
He read the poem aloud.
( Read is used as a noun in the above sentence.)
After he finished super, he began to read the novel.
(Here Read is used as a verb.)
In the above example, the same word read is used as a noun in one
sentence and as a verb in another sentence. For Pakistani and non-
native speakers it is difficult to identify the category of the word.
They often get confused when they are asked to point out the
category of the word. The reason for this is lack of knowledge
regarding parts of speech.