Common English mistakes Arabic speakers make, and how to fix them

If your first language is Arabic, your English mistakes follow Arabic grammar and sounds. They're transfer, not carelessness — and each one has a clear fix.

The big ones. 1) Missing "be" in the present: "She teacher", "He very tall" → "She's a teacher", "He's very tall". 2) Missing "a/an": "I am engineer" → "I'm an engineer". 3) Overusing "the" for general ideas: "The life is hard", "I like the music" → "Life is hard", "I like music". 4) Repeating the pronoun in relative clauses: "the man who I saw him" → "the man I saw". 5) Questions without inversion: "Where you go?" → "Where are you going?". 6) "Since" for "for": "I live here since three years" → "I've lived here for three years". 7) His/her for things: "the car and her color" → "its color". 8) Adjective after the noun: "a book red" → "a red book". 9) Sounds: /p/ as /b/ ("barking" for "parking"), /v/ as /f/ ("fery"), and a helping vowel in or before clusters ("sitreet", "isport") — practice the cluster without the vowel. 10) Vowel pairs: "bit/bet", "ship/sheep", "full/fool" — English vowels carry meaning, so make them distinct.

A list will not change these on its own. The habit shifts when you say the sentences out loud and hear a correction while you are still talking. That is what Airi is for: you speak, she answers out loud, and she shows one small fix at a time, so a missing "is" or an extra "the" is pointed out in the middle of a real conversation. Free to start, no card.

A quick example with Airi

My brother engineer, he work in the company since five years, and the life in Dubai very expensive.

I followed all of that. Try: "My brother is an engineer — he's worked at the company for five years, and life in Dubai is very expensive."

My brother is an engineer, he's worked at the company for five years, and life in Dubai is very expensive.

That's it — 'is', 'an', 'for', and no 'the' before 'life'. Now say 'parking' with a puff of air on the 'p'.

Try a conversation like this, free600 free credits, about 8 minutes of speaking. No card.

Arabic phrases that go wrong when translated word for word

None of these is a gap in vocabulary. Each is an Arabic phrase carried into English piece by piece: a preposition English does not use there, or one Arabic word that English splits in two.

Word-for-word English	Natural English	What Arabic does
I'm afraid from dogs.	I'm afraid of dogs.	The preposition in خائف من is من (min), which usually translates as "from".
My brother is very long.	My brother is very tall.	One word, طويل, means both "long" and "tall".
I did a mistake.	I made a mistake.	One everyday verb, عمل, covers both "do" and "make".
I want to say you something.	I want to tell you something.	The phrase قال لـ ("say to") does the work of both verbs. In English you say something, but you tell a person something.
She works in a special hospital.	She works in a private hospital.	One word, خاص, means both "special" and "private".
He cut the street.	He crossed the street.	The Arabic phrase قطع الشارع is word for word "cut the street".
I love my family too much.	I love my family very much.	One word, كثير, covers "a lot", "very much" and "too much". In English, "too much" means more than is good.
We arrived to the airport in the same time.	We arrived at the airport at the same time.	Word for word, وصل إلى is "arrive to" and في نفس الوقت is "in the same time".

Arabic grammar habits that carry into English verbs and nouns

"Can to" and "must to". Arabic links the two verbs with the particle أن, as in يجب أن أذهب, word for word "must that I go", and that particle turns into "to". English modals take the bare verb: "I can drive", "You must see this", "We should leave."
One present tense for two English ones. In Standard Arabic, أدرس is both "I study" and "I am studying", so the two English forms get swapped: "I am going to the gym every day" or "I study now." Habits take the simple form: "I go to the gym every day." Something happening at this moment takes -ing: "I'm studying right now."
Plural in Arabic, uncountable in English. معلومات (information), نصائح (advice) and أخبار (news) are plural words in Arabic, which is where "informations", "advices" and "the news are" come from. English treats all three as uncountable: "some information", "a piece of advice", "The news is good."
Possession with "of". Arabic names the thing first and its owner second: سيارة أبي is word for word "car my father", which tends to come out as "the car of my father". When the owner is a person, English prefers 's: "my father's car", "the manager's office".

English sounds beyond p and v that Arabic speakers need to build

Standard Arabic has three vowels, a, i and u, each short or long, plus two diphthongs. English has many more, so several English vowels land on the same Arabic one. Three consonants need building as well.

Contrast	Say both	How to make the difference
"th" and s, z, t or d	think / sink, three / tree, they / day, breathe / breeze	Put the tongue tip lightly between the teeth and let the air pass. Standard Arabic has both sounds, ث and ذ. If your dialect replaces them, as Cairo Arabic does, borrow the Standard Arabic sounds for English.
"ng" with no g or k after it	thing / think, sing / sink, singer / finger	Arabic has this sound only before a k sound, never on its own, so "thing" can come out as "think". End "sing" as a hum through the nose and stop there, without releasing a g or k. "Finger" keeps its g; "singer" has none.
"ch" and "sh"	chair / share, cheap / sheep, watch / wash	Standard Arabic has "sh" (ش) but no separate "ch", so "chair" can come out as "share". Start with the tongue blocking the air as for "t", then release into "sh".
The vowels in "sit" and "set"	sit / set, bill / bell, did / dead	Both tend to land on the Arabic short "i". For "sit", keep the jaw nearly closed. For "set", let the jaw drop a little further and open the mouth wider.
The gliding vowels in "late" and "note"	let / late, wet / wait, pen / pain	These vowels move. Said short and flat, "late" sounds like "let". Start on the "e" of "let" and glide toward "ee". For "no", "note" and "phone", finish with the lips rounding toward "oo".

Linking, stress and weak vowels: the rhythm habits Arabic carries into English

A Standard Arabic syllable cannot begin with a vowel, so a word that seems to start with one really starts with a small catch in the throat, the hamza. Carried into English, that catch puts a tiny break before each word that begins with a vowel, where English runs the words together. Arabic stress is also predictable from the weight of the syllables, while English stress has to be learned word by word.

Link a final consonant to the next vowel. "Turn it off" is said "tur-ni-toff", "an apple" is "a-napple", and "pick it up" is "pi-ki-tup".
Learn the stress with the word. In Arabic a long or consonant-heavy last syllable takes the stress; in English it often does not. Say "DIFF-i-cult", "OR-gan-ize" and "SUIT-case", not "diff-i-CULT", "or-gan-IZE" or "suit-CASE".
Let weak syllables go weak. When every written vowel gets its full sound, the stressed syllable stops standing out. In English, unstressed vowels shrink to a quick "uh": "banana" is "buh-NAN-uh" and "today" is "tuh-DAY".

Drilling Arabic transfer mistakes out loud with Airi

Knowing the rule is not the same as saying the right thing at speed. Airi answers out loud and shows one small fix at a time. She does not give pronunciation scores, so treat her as a listener who reacts to what she heard. The 600 free credits last about eight minutes, so start with the steps that match your own mistakes.

Set the target: "Arabic is my first language. Please point out when I say 'afraid from', 'I can to' or 'informations'."
Ask her to interview you about your family, including the best advice a relative ever gave you. Your answers will call for "tall", "my father's" and "a piece of advice".
Tell her what you do every day, then what you are doing right now. That forces both present tenses.
Use a sound pair on purpose: "I think I'll sit here and set my bag down." If her reply shows she heard a different word, slow down and say it again.
When a small fix appears, say the corrected sentence once before you continue. Next time, pick three new rows from the tables; she remembers your name and your last topic.

How to get the most from it

Add 'is/are' and 'a/an'

She's a teacher. He's an engineer. Every time.

'The' only for specific things

Life is hard (general) vs. the life of a nurse (specific).

Puff the /p/

Park, people, paper — a burst of air. Hold a hand in front of your mouth to feel it.

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Frequently asked questions

Why do Arabic speakers drop 'is' and 'a'?

Arabic forms present-tense sentences without a verb "be" and has no indefinite article, so "She teacher" is a complete Arabic sentence in English words. The fix is to say the full pattern, "She is a teacher", out loud until it is the version that sounds right to you.

Why is /p/ hard for Arabic speakers?

Standard Arabic has no /p/, so its closest sound, /b/, takes over and "parking" comes out as "barking". For /p/ the voice starts late and a puff of air escapes: hold a hand in front of your mouth and you feel it on "pay" but hardly at all on "bay".

Are there false friends between Arabic and English?

Few. The two languages come from different families and share very few related words, so look-alike words are rarely the problem. The real traps are literal translations: one Arabic word for two English ones, such as طويل for "long" and "tall" or خاص for "special" and "private", and prepositions such as "afraid from".

Does my Arabic dialect change which mistakes I make?

Mostly in pronunciation. Standard Arabic has the "th" sounds, but speakers whose dialect lacks them, as in Cairo, tend to replace them with s and z or t and d in English too. The word-choice and grammar habits on this page come from features that most varieties of Arabic share.

Can I practice with Airi in Arabic?

No. Airi speaks and corrects in English only. You can tell her that Arabic is your first language and ask her to watch for particular patterns.

Is Airi available in the Middle East and North Africa?

Yes. Airi is a website, so there is nothing regional to download: it opens in the browser on a phone or laptop, and you sign up with a Google account. You start with 600 free credits, about eight minutes of speaking, with no card. After that there are one-off packs of 2,600, 7,200 or 17,000 credits for USD 5, 10 or 20, and no subscription.

Last updated: 2026-10-03