Thread: Help me with Arabic pronunciation?

I recently started a beginning Arabic class. We're working on the alphabet, and I'm having trouble hearing the difference between siin and Saad -- English is my first language, so these two letters both basically sound the same to me. I can hear the difference next to an alif or fatHa, but next to any other vowels, it's much more difficult. (I suspect I'm going to run into similar issues with the other emphatic letters when they come up in class -- just a guess.) Does anybody have any suggestions for ear training for these sounds? Any mnemonic phrases? Any Arabic songs where these sounds come up frequently that I can put on my iPod? I know I'll get it with practice, but any suggestions on practicing would be appreciated. :)

Nisreen, the difference in pronunciation is really in the accompanying vowels. Siin is pretty much like our letter "S." Saad is velarized when you pronounce it, you pull the base of the tongue back.

Most beginning Arabic do-it-yourself courses have CDs with pronunciation drills. If you can't find one, maybe you could get your instructor to record a few words using these letters?

Thanks for the feedback! We're using _Alif Baa_, which has DVDs with drills that I've been working with. I guess I'm looking for supplements to that, especially any "tricks" that might help or anything that might be, as Mary Poppins would say, a "spoonful of sugar" in addition to the "medicine" of the DVD drills. Or at minimum, a testimonial or two from somebody else who had the same difficulty, but eventually managed to get it!

I can hear it okay with alif and fatHa, but I guess where I'm really having trouble is with the different versions of oooo & eeee sounds, whether long or short.

If you're just starting will Alif Baa, don't worry about having some difficulty at first. I can remember having that also, and I think pronunciation is one of the hardest parts of the language.

As Bintbeled said, it's only the surrounding vowels that change in sound.
It's a bit hard to transliterate the difference into Latin letters, but this might help. The "sawd" followed by the "ya" makes a sound similar to the English word "soy." Also the "taw" followed by the "ya" makes a sound a little like "toy." The vowel "ooh" becomes "o", and "aa" becomes "aw" with the emphatic letters.

I found Marcel Khalife's album "Promises of the Storm" extremely helpful for learning Arabic. It comes with the lyrics (in Arabic and English) so you can follow along, and he also sings in Standard Arabic, so it will be the same words/sounds they teach in class.

Good luck and keep at it-- it'll make sense soon enough!

I've heard the difference explained with the aide memoire of "sin in the sun" with the arabic "sin" open and light (like your mouth is when you say our "sin") and the "sad" more closed and dark (more like your mouth in "sun").

I don't know if this makes any sense...

Nisreen, ask this boy on youtube to put up a clip showing the difference, he's great!

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5uE8GpJ61E"]YouTube - learn arabic[/ame]

This is great! Thanks everybody for your help & encouragement. The boy on Youtube is quite a teacher. :) I'm so excited about learning Arabic that I'm a little impatient with myself, but this gives me some more ways to practice.

hi bintbeled,

my class was taught to think of it this way: the 'hard' sounds are vocalized with your tongue pulled low and back, and the 'soft' sounds are made with your tongue forward and lightly touching your upper palate

it seems a little strange at first but got me doing it right without much thought
good luck!