Arabic vowels

[letnja_kisha]

It is the weirdest thing - I have great trouble distinguishing long and short vowels in Arabic, although the difference between them is quite audible, and it is more pronounced than in English. Actually, in English there isn't a set of long vowels and a set of short vowels that are exactly the same as the long vowels, just shorter, per se, it's just that some are longer and some shorter.

Russian certainly doesn't have a distinction between short and long vowels, so that is one reason for me having trouble in Arabic.

I don't remember that I had any trouble with English vowels, but it was so long ago that I am not sure if I ever confused 'beach' and 'bitch' or 'sheet' and 'shit' (why are those contrasts always so amusing?). I certainly do not do that now.

Anyway, the question is, why would I confuse the vowels (or not remember the difference, I can certainly hear it) in Arabic, while I don't do so in English?

Comments

[squittycat.livejournal.com]

I haven't had trouble with this so far; however, since we have only been studying Arabic a few weeks the teacher and the voices on the tapes have all exaaaaagerated the long vowels.

So I do not know how well I will do with this later on. Maybe you should just keep listening to lots and lots of minimal pairs? :)

[letnja-kisha.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think so :-) The trouble is not in hearing them, but in remembering where there is a long vowel, and where there is a short one. I guess I'll get better.

[alrumi.livejournal.com]

Do not worry, soon it will come with practice. I wonder why you've started learning Arabic?

[letnja-kisha.livejournal.com]

Well, I thought I had a pretty good European set (Russian, Serbian, English, Spanish, German), and I wanted to learn some non-Indo-European language. Arabic seemed good for two reasons: it is widely spoken and then there was this fellowship that I could apply for where I needed to learn a not-widely taught language (Chinese is very widely taught here, and that was the other option I was considering). I received that fellowship, and now I have to take an Arabic class and an area studies class. Both are very interesting, so it works out great.

[mashats.livejournal.com]

When I asked for a "cookie-sheet" in a store people around me smiled ;-))))
I thought I was very clear, but I guess they thought different ;-)