The field of Arabic as a foreign language has not been thoroughly researched. Many foreigners, especially Americans, come to Morocco to study Arabic for many reasons. The difference between learners’ mother tongue (L1) and Arabic as a target language (TL) makes the learning process lengthy and challenging. This article tries to investigate how language transfer pushes Arabic L2 learners to produce ungrammatical sentences. To put it succinctly, what is the role of L1 in learning Arabic as an L2/ L3? The results show that learners transfer their L1 setting into the target language. That is, the major source of errors made by Arabic L2 learners is caused by language transfer (overgeneralization and interference).

Arabic as a foreign language (AFL), language transfer, interlanguage, input, Arabic L2 learners, universal grammar, mother tongue (L1).

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