If you feel that English spelling is hard, don’t be discouraged. It’s not easy for a native English speaker either, according to the Times’s recent article English Spelling: hard to learn, full of oddities and a glorious portal to history. Here is the excerpt:
There is no point in pretending that English spelling is easy. But then neither is water-skiing, nor horsemanship, nor playing the guitar, nor doing tricks on a skateboard. And the rewards are curiously similar: precision, communication and aesthetic satisfaction. English words are not dull products of an isolated and narrow monoculture: they reflect the kaleidoscope of history. They are eccentric, wayward and playful, thumbing (with that crazy b in the middle) their nose at dull phoneticists. No vowel sound depends on only one letter: we have peep and leap, weird and police, ski and key and people; we have truth and fruit and tomb and blue.
For the full article, click here.
November 3, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Here’s a very QUICK way to find your word by the way it sounds. Nothing like it…ever. Just sound out your word then look it up in the book. You will find the word you really need in 20 seconds or less without having to turn on the computer or go on the internet!! I promise!
http://www.gabbyswordspeller.com
Gabby’s Wordspeller & Phonetic Dictionary
Published 2008 for the world and International Lions Club
ISBN 978-0-9801025-0-5