Libyan students of the English language at the University level still have difficulties pronouncing some phonemes and sounds

Abstract

This study attempts to study the difficulties encountered by Libyan students while pronouncing some English phonemes. Each language has the rule to combine sound segments in order to create meaningful words Children learn these sound laws by try and error after listening to others. They then develop a linguistic ability that enables them to identify and generate important sounds. For some who have disappeared, when students learn a second language or a foreign language, there are overlaps due to the very different phoneme systems of both languages. Thus, when they attempt to speak a second language, they produce the sounds that are closest to the sounds and also exist in their mother tongue. All study participants are adults who have finished high school and have joined the University. Participants have never visited English-speaking countries; thus they are not exposed to an English-speaking environment.