Why does English pronunciation differ from spelling?

1 Answer

Answer :

answer:The easy answer is “no”. The more complicated answer is, English speakers mostly learn their words by sound and trial and error and not by pronunciation. As far as a speaker not hearing a word correctly: it happens. Whether you are an L1 or L2 learner of English, you have surely run into this problem: when you try to pronounce an English word you’ve never heard spoken often your pronunciation is incorrect. I can’t pronounce French and some Italian words to save my life on the first or second try either. I think the incorrect pronunciation is just due to a lack of exposure to the language. (At least this is how it’s been with Chinese for me…after 2 years I hear most everything correctly, but at first it was VERY spotty). One of the reasons why English is a stupid language (and I mean that every language has weaknesses and stupid points) is it’s pronunciation system. George Bernard Shaw, borrowing from a spelling reformer, came up with the word “Ghoti”. How do you say that? You probably say got-tea, goat-tea, goat-tie or something like it. But actually the pronunciation is the same as fish.

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