Why do you study English?

If you were to study Chinese, you'd know different. If you see a word in Pinyin with the tone mark, you know exactly 100% how to pronounce it. Can you say that about a language with words like 'yacht' or 'knight'?

I second that. And, ah, those spelling bees, what a nightmare!

"Can you say that about a language with words like 'yacht' or 'knight'?"

Aha. I thought this was all about English spelling rather than pronunciation.

Spelling is not pronunciation; English pronunciation is as systematic and constant as the pronunciation of any other language.

Sorry, but unfortunately for those who wish to learn to write in English, we do have an eccentric spelling system. But take some comfort in the fact that even native speakers have to learn English spelling as well.

Them's the breaks!

For instance: "ch" in yacht is pronounced pretty much like H in hoover, while "ch" in macho is pronounced like Ch in Charles. This doesn't happen in german, italian, japanese or any slavic language, for instance. And so on. Systematic and constant, I don't think so. My english teacher used to say: write Smith, read Jones (a joke); for instance.

"For instance: 'ch' in yacht is pronounced pretty much like H in hoover, while 'ch' in macho is pronounced like Ch in Charles."

Again, you insist on arguing about spelling here, not pronunciation.

There are a set number of phonetic sounds in English, just as there are in any language. Those sounds are not uniformly represented by characters in the writing system of the language, that's all.

Our daffy spelling system doesn't seem to inhibit the popularity of our language though.

OK my mistake, sorry.
The popularity of english language is caused by political, economical and military causes. It'll fade away in few hundred years and chinese are waiting.

In the future the most popular language will be of the next vampires of the world. The latest one were English who sucked the blood to the entire palanet like parasites, the next country ehich do the same will have its language spoken. So simple.

Some ppl had a choice but I was born to go to this american international school. My parents had no other choice but this school. Was I doomed. One thing though, I have gained three cultures in one stone. It was not only English languaged I haved learned but also american culture , literature and history.

I noticed that many are worried with their accent not with the meat of fluency in speaking the language. Yes , I do have my own style of writing english.


Ciao

It used to be Latin, now it's English.
I like Vampire, though. Vampire=empire; imperial=vampirial.
:)

Yeah! But Latins were not "vampires", this is the difference.
English have the aggravating circumstance of having done it in modern times

"Aha. I thought this was all about English spelling rather than pronunciation.

Spelling is not pronunciation; English pronunciation is as systematic and constant as the pronunciation of any other language.

Sorry, but unfortunately for those who wish to learn to write in English, we do have an eccentric spelling system. But take some comfort in the fact that even native speakers have to learn English spelling as well.

Them's the breaks!"

Bleh. Same difference. You knew what I meant. :)

Incidentally, to Native Korean: I've heard that Hangul, the Korean alphabet, is really good with words sounding like they're spelled as well. Is that true? If you see a word in Hangul, will you pretty much know how to pronounce it 100% of the time?

Learning is the consequence of study and you study FOR learning. These clarifications are indeed useless and snobbish.
If anything there are different levels of studying I can agrre on this point.

You need to learn basic english because your future depends on this.We are now in the global generation and the means to communicate is through speaking in english - not particularly which english (American or British).I teach Korean children the basics and i appreciate their effort at very young age;their parents have good foresight and they are very concern about good future in terms of jobs in any part of the world.come on learn it now. I will appreciate it more if you can consider me as your teacher. Contact me at cadz57@yahoo.com See you!

I'm from mongolia. i really wanna to learn english perfectly! Help me! give me valuable advising! Please!

The thing is that English is a pluricentric language with a very wide range of dialects, so it is practically impossible to have a single orthography that gets anywhere close to phonemically describing any significant subset of English dialects; even just accurately phonemically describing both General American and Received Pronunciation simultaneously in a single orthography would be very difficult. The closest one can get is some kind of semietymological diachronics-based orthography that seeks to maximize the distinctions and, when in doubt, represent the oldest distinctions present in any extant English dialects.

With that in mind, one should better treat English spelling as an extremely loose guideline and English writing as simply a means of abstractly representing formal English. One should view actual English pronunciation, of whichever standard or dialect, as something that has to be learned separately from English orthography. Actually, one should view the everyday spoken language as distinct from even the formal spoken language and not even assume that one can really directly write what is spoken using standard English orthography without translating it into formal English first.

So are there no prescriptive grammar rules that are objectively and universally valid?