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The Arabic language is used in The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and thus consists of many dialects (Chouchane, 2016). These dialects are different from region to region as well as from family to family. Although most ESL learners are keen on conversing in that target language perfectly, many Arabic students encounter a lot of challenges in learning English. There exist various linguistics variances between Arabic and English communication; a situation that challenges Arabic ESL students to form and pronounce some English letters sounds correctly. Again, although English pronunciation problems tend to differ from dialect to dialect in the Arabic speaking countries; some common English phonological challenges affect nearly every ESL student. This paper is an observation of the pronunciation challenges encountered by English students in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. One of the most notorious pronunciation challenges facing Saudi students is mastering the difference between sound /p/ verses /b/. The Arabic language does not have ‘p’ sound, and hence, most of the Arab English as second language students often tend to replace sound ‘p’ with a sound ‘b’ while reading or speaking. For example, ‘parking’ becomes ‘barking.’ As such, when you interchange the two sounds / English, /p/ and /b/, the meaning will be completely distorted. The Saudi student should, therefore, become keener of the difference between the two sounds as they perfect to pronounce, (Murcia, Brinton & Goodwin, 2010). Another pronunciation setback facing the English learners in The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as exposed by Chouchane (2016) is sound /f/ and /v/. The Arabic language lacks sound ‘v’; a situation that lures the learners to use sound ‘f’ instead. Although sound ‘v’ has a labiodental, sounds made with the lips and teeth, the students have difficulties pronouncing it correctly mostly because they know not how to produce it. The sound ‘v’ should be released from the middle of the lips and teeth while ensuring that the sound vibrates between the two. If the pronunciation of the two sounds does not come out clearly, the meaning will come out distorted. For instance, ‘fan’ is different from ‘van.’ However, most of the English learners in Saudi Arabia know that the two sounds are quite different, but they still face challenges in pronouncing them differently. Pronouncing the silent letters is another challenge that the English students in Saudi Arabia encounter in their daily learning. This is major because the Arabic spelling is more phonetic. The letters tend to stand in for the sounds, and this makes the students fall in a trap of using similar pronunciation principles while they are speaking English. As an example, students will accidentally confuse ‘foreign’ with ‘for-i-gen.’ This is where the Saudi students must note and practice regularly so that they don’t confuse while pronouncing the English words that have silent letters. Again, Al-Ahdal et al. (2015) observe that Arabic ESL students easily confuse by adding vowel sounds to different words. This happens mainly because the Arabic language contains fewer consonant clusters. For instance, in Arabic, sound ‘sp,’ ‘gr,’ and ‘str’ is somehow pronounced differently or not made at all. Due to the fact of lack of more consonants in the Arabic language, many Saudi students make many errors while pronouncing different words. For example, the letter ‘split’ often becomes ‘e-spi-lit.’ Most ESL in the Arabic countries tend to put vowel sounds either before or after a group of consonants and hence ends up making wild or wrong pronunciation errors. The students, should, therefore, endeavor to study the patterns of the English consonants clusters keenly so that they get rid of that habit of adding vowels into words. Intonation and word stress is another common problem for students in The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Proper use of word stress and intonation suggests much more meaning as the words do and sometimes may produce even more significance. Even before babies reach the time of learning any single word, they first learn to react to language. Word stress and intonation tells the essential part of the utterances and also the mood of the speaker. The Arabic language tends to incorporate a lesser range of word or voice stress and intonation; a situation that results in a type of monotone speaking. For example, a question may seem like they are statements. Here, the learners are encouraged to make an effort of using stresses and intonation while pronouncing words or speaking. The situation might look foolish, but at the end of it will make the listeners understand the speaker better. Additionally, according to Chouchane (2016), sound /r/ marks another pronunciation problem for ESL learners in the Arabic nations, whereby they sometimes tend to pronounce it as ‘trill.’ There are various ways of producing sound ‘r,’ and it is apparent that most Arabic speakers encounter challenges in pronouncing it, especially the dark ‘r.’ The dark ‘r’ is a supposed to be produced or voiced from palatal liquid, and most Arabic students mostly find it very hard to adjust their mouth to that level. The English learners in The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia must endeavor to study producing all the ‘r’ sounds so that they would not confuse while pronouncing words. In conclusion, Saudi Arabian English learners encounter various English pronunciation problems in their endeavor to perfect their English language skills. This is because there are many linguistic variances between the two languages. To overcome those challenges, the students are encouraged to notice those challenges and overcome them by regularly practicing and learning new rules and new sounds. References Al-Ahdal, H., Mohammed, A. A., Al-Hattami, A. A., Al-Awaid, S. A. A., & Al-Mashaqba, N. J. A. H. (2015). Pronunciation for the Arab Learners of EFL: Planning for Better Outcomes. English Language Teaching, 8(10), 100-106. Celc e-Murcia, M., Brinton, D. & Goodwin, J. (2010). Teaching pronunciation: A course book and reference guide. New York: Cambridge University Press. Chouchane, A. (2016). Pronunciation difficulties for Arab learners of English. Global English-Oriented Research Journal (GEORJ), 2(2), 205-2015.
