• tiredofsametab@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    No, instead you have to learn to read and spell in a system that often sounds quite different to what is written. I want to read a book that’s never been read. I want to live a life alive at a live show. Anything ending in ~ough which has something like 6 or 8 different sounds. I’m a native speaker trying to work with my wife on English (we speak Japanese at home). It’s insane for any reading/spelling.

      • tiredofsametab@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        I think liason is the harder part about trying to transcribe someone’s spoken words as a new learner without a good grasp on vocabulary.

        At least with French, a lot of those silent letters are a lot more predictable than English. English has French borrowings (from two different time periods), Latin borrowings (some of which were borrowed via Norman or Old French first), Greek, Germanic, etc. and we did various levels of preserving the native spelling. This is neat for etymology and maybe figuring out a word one doesn’t know, but kinda sucks for spelling. A lot of words from Normal and Old French are now spelled differently in modern Parisian, but the more recent loans are closer. It’s a hot mess.

    • saroh@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      And then you also have to get the correct stress on the syllables which are also unguessable. Ask for a banana instead of a banaaaaaaaana and people won’t understand.