Therefore “ fii’ as well as other Arabic prepositions...

Therefore “ fii’ as well as other Arabic prepositions interferes the selection and usage of English once. Fii I sleptin bed. (Correct response) (In) Spring beginsin the first of March. (On) In the end of the journey we brought fruit. (At) In my last holiday I did many different thinks. (During) I went homein happily. (?) The plane is flyinginto the sky.

(In) The first English preposition that is likely to be produced as the equivalent of the Arabic preposition fii is “in” as shown in the first sentence where it is correctly used. However it is incorrectly selected instead of “on, at, during, “?”, and into”. In the sentences 2,3,4 and5. On the other hand students may also they maybe use this preposition and all its other equivalents interchangeably, as illustrated by sentence 6.

Another problem is that Arab use or omit certain English prepositions according to Arabic usage .so, by literal translation when the Arabic context requires a preposion (or requires none), learners make wrong responses accordingly as illustrated in the following examples: The boy enjoyed the film. The literal translation of this sentence is Either the boy enjoyedwith the film. Or the boy enjoyed from the film.

In Arabic it is necessary to insert a preposition to make a relationship between the enjoyment and the film, which was the cause of the enjoyment. With out such a preposition the Arabic sentence will have no sense. Therefore Arab learners are likely to insert unnecessary prepositions when they express themselves in English. On the other hand, they may omit necessary prepositions as illustrated by the following examples: When we arrivedin Jericho we bought fruit.

I must stayat the university for eight years. I saw the domeof the rock. These are correct responses in English. The prepositions “in, for, and of” must be inserted to form a relationship between the arriving and the place, which was arrived at, and the stay at the university and the time to be spent there; also between the rock and the dome which is built over it. With out these prepositions the above sentences will make no sense in English.

But the literal translations of these sentences don’t need such prepositions because the relationship exists in Arabic without them as shown in flowchart (1).