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No issues reading that poem, and I'm French. No issues learning English either.
Of course, it's not easy for everyone, but if things are explained it's not that hard. Why? Because on top of grammar and vocabulary, we learn phonetics! So for each word learnt, we get the phonetic equivalent.
(most of the time, foreigners who pronounce another language really badly haven't been taught phonetics, haven't studied it very long, have issues pronouncing sounds that don't exist in their mother tongue, or have what we call "a bad ear").
I don't understand your post. How does learning phonetics help with words like enough, though, through, plough, dough, and cough?
I'm reminded of part a comedian's routine about how crazy the English language is (I think it was Galliger):
"Even the NUMBERS are difficult to spell! The number ONE.....it sounds like it should start with a "w." But noooooo! Then we come to TWO. It has a "w"!! Do you hear a "w"? Does it need a "w"?? Nooooooo!"
"(saying the letters) h-e-a-r-d......heard. (Points to the facial hair on his chin). Bird? a-c-h-e.....ache..... (Points to the facial hair over his lip). Does that make this a mistake?!"
On the contrary, I would say that most of the changes to English came about from England being invaded rather than the other way around. I am speaking specifically about the Norman Conquest of 1066.
If you want to have a little fun speculating on what English would be like without the French influence, take a gander at this: https://groups.google.com/forum/mess...0/_7p8bKwLJWkJ
It's a scientific discussion of "Atomic Theory" using only Germanic roots!
?? "On the contrary" is an easy phrase to use, but should be used judiciously.
Written works prior to 1066 are few and far between - and there was absolutely no standardized spelling at that point. There is no "contrary" about it since the discussion regards the mismatch between spoken English and spelling. In a nutshell, the Norman conquest had very little effect on spelling (as opposed to the spoken language) in that the language was not widely written down prior to 1066. The Normans introduced a flood of new words rather than cause a reform of how the extant terms were spoken (even if their pronunciation matched their spelling at that point).
The British imperial presence in other countries led to the backflow of terms having illogical spellings into English.
Its not as if English alone has this problem. I once heard someone half-jokingly tell a novice reading French - "Just don't pronounce the last third of the word"
I don't understand your post. How does learning phonetics help with words like enough, though, through, plough, dough, and cough?
Because you learn how to pronounce them individually, following the International Phonetics Alphabet.
For instance: the student reads a text containing the word "cough". He will learn its equivalent in phonetic alphabet, [kɒf] , which is how it is pronounced. Problem solved. The only thing is that you have to learn the phonetic alphabet, then of course you need to learn both spelling and pronunciation. Sounds hard but it actually isn't.
So you get:
Cough = [kɒf]
Enough = [ɪˈnʌf]
Plough = [plaʊ]
etc
Of course you are taught these words when they are in a document you are working on, you don't learn them all at once.
Besides, at Middle School or HS level you don't learn the whole IPA, just vowels and the consonants that are different from those in your mother tongue (how to pronounce "th" for instance, i.e. δ or θ ).
And while we're at it, let's round-off the numerical value of "pi" to 3 as the Indiana (or was it Texas?) legislature tried to do some years back . . .
And while we're at it, let's round-off the numerical value of "pi" to 3 as the Indiana (or was it Texas?) legislature tried to do some years back . . .
As in three point zero?!?!
I never heard of that legislation (and I lived in Indiana for decades, and now live in Texas!)
This idea has been around for quite a long time. For instance, the following piece is often attributed to Mark Twain, although that is unlikely. But it is certainly a piece from the 19th century.
For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet.
The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later.
Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all.
Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants.
Bai iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli.
Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.
This idea has been around for quite a long time. For instance, the following piece is often attributed to Mark Twain, although that is unlikely. But it is certainly a piece from the 19th century.
For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet.
The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later.
Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all.
Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants.
Bai iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli.
Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.
I suppose as digital format replaces actual books, a gradual shift to "sensible spelling" could take place. Look at email and text messaging....ppl dont bother 2 spell everything rite, u know?
What is the point? Words are symbols that we subscribe meaning to. No matter how they are pronounced, when you see the words though, tough, write, right, ache, and mustache, you know what they mean. It also won't change how people speak. You know how to pronounce mistake and mustache. Sure, some have problems with writing the language and confuse their, there, and they're but that has more to do with laziness than anything.
In keeping with "their, there, they're", only one of these words could have the "new" phonetic spelling. Two completely new words would need to be created for the remaining two.
The third point is that no matter how "correctly" the words are spelled there will always be groups of people who pronounce them in an entirely different way. As examples, no matter how you spell it some will always pronounce it as ask and others as ax; some car, some cawh, and some cah. Pen, pin? To a Mainer airport will remain aye-uh-paht.
The problem with semi-phonetic spelling is that it completely breaks down when adapting for other regions/countries. Letter combinations will have slightly differing pronunciations and words will emphasise different parts. This sort of spelling would sunder written English a la Old Norse.
For the most part this problem is exagerated and tends to lessen as one becomes more educated. Also these regional dialects--for all their charm--are tending to erode in our inter-connected world and modern communications that allow us to hear people from other parts of the world speak. If our speech is as different as you say then we would be utterly unintelligible to one another. It is true, some may break into dialect, but the English-speaking world is far along on the way to a fairly Standard Pronunciation. The idea that we can't write the more or less Standard Pronunciation we already have a good 80% agreement on is only a step above nonesense.
Your new resulting paragraph looks like Dutch or Finnish. Phonetic spellings, they are not...if people want to spell phonetically given the current letter system, I have no real problem with that. To take the very last word that you "translated" as an example, if people spell "double" as "dubble", that'd be fine by me. Debul, though, I'd be opposed to, as your letters are about as arbitrary as the current ones seem to be (regardless of linguistic history).
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