English is still mostly phonetic

Guest   Sun Sep 07, 2008 5:47 pm GMT
If certain letter combinations are treated as digraphs, trigraphs etc, then by far the majority of English follow a standard pattern. It's just those few anomalous cases in some of the most common words that leads foreigners to believe that English has a haphazard spelling system.
Lazar   Sun Sep 07, 2008 6:55 pm GMT
It's true that there are a lot of regular patterns that can be found in English spelling.
Fidel Castro   Sun Sep 07, 2008 11:32 pm GMT
<English is still mostly phonetic>

Lol, that's one of the best jokes I've heard in a while
Guest   Mon Sep 08, 2008 4:27 am GMT
<<Lol, that's one of the best jokes I've heard in a while >>

But it's true that the spelling of a word usually contains hints (often stong hints) as to how that word is pronounced. Consider:

"one" -- the "n" is a pretty good hint

"eye" -- no consonants here, so another good hint

"shillelagh" -- lots of hints here -- almost phonetic, in fact

"phthalic" -- phonetic, if you igore the "ph"


Also note that the two and three syllable examples generally have more letters than the one syllable words -- another hint.

Can anyone think of a word whose spelling contains no hints at all regarding its pronunciation?
greg   Mon Sep 08, 2008 4:43 am GMT
'Guest' : « English is still mostly phonetic ».

Diantre ! L'anglais (comme **TOUTES** les langues parlées) est phonétique et phonémique à 100 %.

L'anglais visuel — tel qu'il s'écrit à l'heure actuelle (alphabet latin, pas cyrillique ; absence de runes ; etc) — est, par essence, phonétique et phonémique à 0 % (comme **TOUTES** les représentations écrites des langues parlées).

L'anglais oral et l'anglais écrit sont les deux faces d'une même pièce. La face orale est phonétique et phonémique, la face écrite est graphique et graphémique.

Si, en revanche, tu t'intéresses à la relation oral/écrit à travers l'anglais, alors oui, il n'existe pas de correspondance biunivoque entre phonèmes et graphèmes (et encore moins entre sons et graphies). C'est également le cas dans toutes les langues d'Europe.

Ceci dit, le "degré de biunivocité" phonème/graphème est moins certainement élevé en anglais qu'en castillan. Mais le principe essentiel demeure : pas de biunivocité.
Levee   Mon Sep 08, 2008 5:21 am GMT
A kurva anyádért beszélsz franciául bazd meg
Uriel   Mon Sep 08, 2008 7:33 am GMT
Look, it's our way of weeding out the weak and faint of heart, okay?
Levee   Mon Sep 08, 2008 7:36 am GMT
:)))
Guest   Mon Sep 08, 2008 1:17 pm GMT
<<Can anyone think of a word whose spelling contains no hints at all regarding its pronunciation?>>

The word itself IS a hint regarding its pronunciation.
Lazar   Mon Sep 08, 2008 7:38 pm GMT
<<Can anyone think of a word whose spelling contains no hints at all regarding its pronunciation?>>

Yes: the name "Raymond Luxury Yacht", which is pronounced "Throatwobbler Mangrove". There's absolutely no phoneme-to-grapheme correspondence at all.
Guest   Mon Sep 08, 2008 10:06 pm GMT
Todos deberian de aprender español y su vida seria mucho mas facil.
Uriel   Tue Sep 09, 2008 6:19 am GMT
All I'm saying is, if we native speakers had to spend half of our childhoods memorizing lists and lists of bizarre spellings -- with weekly spelling tests every Friday -- then there's no reason why foreigners should get off any easier. Bring on the silent GH's! Builds character, dammit!
Guest   Tue Sep 09, 2008 5:16 pm GMT
<<Todos deberian de aprender español y su vida seria mucho mas facil. >>

Spellingwise, yes, but Spanish grammar (especially verbs) is vastly more complex than English grammar, and more than makes up for the easier spelling. Overall, Spanish is more complex than English.
Guest   Tue Sep 09, 2008 7:59 pm GMT
Not really, they're quite even but as it's being mentioned in previous discussions Spanish is slightly easier, but ok this is not the thread to talk about that.
Uninvited   Mon Sep 15, 2008 4:21 am GMT
The correct way to say the previous sentence is "Todos deberían aprender español, porque si lo hicieran, su vida sería más fácil". The person who wrote the earlier sentence speaks "cheap" Spanish. And yes, Spanish has many more variations in conjugations and tenses than English, it even has some tenses that don't even exist in the English language.