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1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of study
For every human, language is one of the important things to communicate to
each other. Language as a means of communication has a very important role.
Role of the language as a communication tool among others, as a means of
maintaining good relations between individuals, for the sake of the world for
tourism, business, and so forth. The relationship is not only limited to regional and
national relationships, but also of international relations. Chiercia (1990: 11)
states that language carry meaning unable us to use them express message, to
convey information to another.
There are many languages in the world. English and Arabic as the
international languages are learned as a foreign language in Indonesia. It is not
easy to learn them in Indonesia. Besides English and Arabic is still known and
studied as a foreign language, there are many factors that influence the mastery of
English and Arabic. The factors that become difficult in mastering them for many
students are the difference particularly as regards the rules of language or
grammar.
James (1980: 3) says that Contrastive analysis is a linguistic enterprise aimed
at producing inverted two valued typologies (a contrastive analysis is always
concerned with a pair of languages), and founded on the assumption that
languages can be compared.
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Contrastive analysis in general term is an inductive investigative approach
based on the distinctive elements in a language (Kardaleska, 2006). In common
definition, the term can be defined as the method of analyzing the structure of any
two languages with a view to estimate the differential aspects of their system.
Contrastive analysis is very useful for a teacher who teaches a foreign
language because it helps him in identifying the problems that a foreign language
learner may experience in the learning process. Lado (1957: 2) states “The teacher
who has made a comparison of the foreign language with the native language of
the students will know better what the real problems are and provide for teaching
them.’’
That’s why when the students made some mistakes during learning or using a
foreign language attract the attention of experts, especially experts engaged of
language teaching. It is not surprising that many books are written to introduce
new approaches in language teaching. The approach is speaking an error analysis
approach and a contrastive analysis.
In this opportunity the writer will attempt to compare the formation of past
tense between Arabic and English. We often hear that the Arabic language is so
complete compared with other languages. Arabic language has all been arranged
so neatly and systematically. But when we see the formation of past tense between
Arabic and English, in fact we can see that the English language has a past tense
division formation is more complete than the Arabic language.
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In this opportunity the writer also will compare the formation of past tense
verb in Arabic and English with the use of contrastive analysis, for example, we
compare the past perfect in English with Fiil Madhi equivalent to that in the
Arabic language. In this case though we do not find a more specific name in the
Arabic language as found in English, but we can actually find an equivalent
comparison between the two languages.
1.2 The Problem of the Study
It is an important to understand that the comparison between English and
Arabic past tense are interesting subject to investigate. For the investigation there
are some problems that has formulated as follows:
a. What are the function of past tense in English and Arabic?
b. What are the formation of past tense in English and Arabic?
c. Are there any similarities and differences between English and Arabic past
tenses?
1.3 The Scope of the Study
Considering the verb's complexity and also the writer's ability and time
restricted the scope of this investigation need to be limited to the discussion of the
analysis in comparing the similarities and the differences between the past tense
of English and those of Arabic.
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The purpose of writing this paper:
1. To explain the Structure of Past Tense.
2. To explain the Structure of Fiil Madhi.
3. To find out the similarities and differences of Past Tense in English and
Arabic.
1.5 The Significance of the Study
1. To enrich knowledge about Past Tense and Fiil Madhi.
2. To answer the curious of the writer in Past Tense and Fiil Madhi.
3. To be used as references for the readers or students and teachers who are
interested in analyzing of Past Tense and Fiil Madhi.
1.6 The Method of the Research
When someone wants to do a research, he or she may select a technique
which is familiar to him or her. In writing this paper, the library method of
research is used.
1.7 Review of Related Literature
Massey (2008: 38) says, “Past tense describes actions or conditions that
happened in the past. In Arabic, you express past tense by adding one of the many
past tense personal pronoun suffixes to the verb.”
Harefa 2009: 27 sa s The tea her does a o trasti e a al sis of the
target la guage a d the stude ts ati e la guage i order to locate the places
here she a ti ipates her stude ts ill ha e trou le.
