The impact of the mother tongue in learning a second language:

Abstract

The learner begins to learn the target language while he/she has a complete linguistic system for his/ her native language. The native language system usually is the only linguistic system that he/she has, and his/ her general frame that accommodates the new linguistic system; therefore, the mother tongue interferes significantly on some levels: the sound, vocabularies, structures, and significance. To study the influence of the mother tongue in every level of language does not mean to separate them; because we realize that the language is a complete system which consists of partial systems: vocal, morphological, syntactic and semantic, moreover, every defect in any of them is followed by a defect in the rest of the systems. Considering the previous aspects while learning the target language carries a picture of the process of learning the language which is sometimes blended or controlled by what might be called an (illusion) its source basically is the system of the mother tongue. In addition, the realization of the mother tongue impact in learning the target language comes from understanding the issue of the learner’s connect between the two languages.