The ma in objective of th is study was to find out we difficu lties Amharic learners of English mayrnhave in pronounc ing certain English so unds, words and sentences both on segmental andrnsuprasegmental leve ls.rnAccording to Contrastive Analys is (CA), in lea rning the pro nunci ation of a second/ fo re ignrnlanguage, we tend to pronounce the foreign so unds, word s, and se ntences accord ing to thernphonological system of our mother tongue. In the realm of phonology, the difficu lty of a secondrnlanguage depends on the difficulty both of the sounds themselves and of the ir combinatoricrnpossibilities.rnTo veri fy this claim of CA empirically, 6 1 native speakers of Amharic were given two tests, arndi sc rimination and a production test. The discrimination test was aimed at finding out therndiniculties these subjects have in discrim in ati ng between sounds in minimal pa irs, stress (bothrnon word and sentence le ve l) and intonation (rising and fallin g). The objecti ve of the product ionrntest was to find out whether the subjects could produce the so unds, words and sentences whichrnthey discriminated or otherwise.rnThe results of this study reveal that the subjects were fo und to be better at discrimi nation than atrnprod uction. Most of the so unds that caused problems for the subjects were categories that arernnon-existent in Amharic such as: /8, 6, D, v, p, re, A, ~, i:, U:, a:/, diphthongs, consonant clusters,rnstress placement (both on word and sentence levels) and intonation (Wh-question, commands,rnfinal alternative, and certa inty/agreement). In some cases, sounds, stressed words, or intonat ionrncontours which were eas ily di scriminated and produced in one pos ition were found to berntroublesome in another posi t ion.rnIn genera l, areas of diffe rences between the phonological systems of the two languages causedrnthe greatest difficu lties fo r the subjects