Arabic and English Conditional Clauses: A Comparative Study

Year 2019, Volume: 13, 109 - 114, 31.08.2019

Samar Sami Hammadı

Abstract

According to a study done by Covitt (1976), Conditional sentences ranked
fifth on a list of most serious teaching problems encountered by ESL teachers.
Hence, this paper aims to conduct a comparative study of conditional clauses  in Arabic and English, to discuss some of the
difficulties facing the students and English language learners in understanding
the conditional structure and its translation from Arabic to English and vice
versa. Conditional sentences and its structures are difficult sometimes become
confusing for some students so they may become a puzzle that is hard to
understand. Studying the conditional structure in general, and our
understanding of its nature and the functions of its structure, helps us as
educators and linguists to reach to our students' needs who find difficult to
perform conditional clauses in Arabic and English and translated them
correctly. Therefore, 40 lecturers had been asked about the difficulties in
conditional clauses in order to focus on what should be done to analyze these
difficulties encountered by students and language learners in the field of
teaching in both Arabic and English. In this vein, the study aims to
discuss the following aspects; first, the concept of conditional clauses and
its classification in Arabic and English. Second, summarizes the similarities
and differences of conditional clauses in both languages. Third difficulties
that students face in learning conditional clauses and; finally, explore and
clarify strategies for conditional clauses used to teach them to the students.

Keywords

Conditional clauses, Arabic, English, Strategies, Students

References

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