A Comparative Study of English and Arabic Use of Prepositions Amongst Arab Native Speakers

Methodology

The sample of this study, which consisted of twenty male students, were chosen randomly from the population of Arab students at UPM .the selected members of this sample were students doing their masters or PHD .in computer science, engineering and economic and management faculties. Arabic is the mother tongue for all of them while English language is used as a foreign language. A test was conducted to examine the students’ abilities to distinguish between English and Arabic prepositions.

The test consisted of three questions.

Q.1. This question focused only on locational prepositions, in a multiple-choice format.

Q.2. This question focused only on directional prepositions, in a multiple-choice format.

Q.3. This question focused on both locational and directional prepositions and required the translation of short statements from Arabic into English.