>In German the spelling is centrally planned and gets reformed every other year. Which is why German words are mostly spelled as they're pronounced, as opposed

>In German the spelling is centrally planned and gets reformed every other year. Which is why German words are mostly spelled as they're pronounced, as opposed to English. As a native English speaker, this is definitely a big plus. I've had German friends who've regularly expressed frustration that there's often no real rhyme or reason or pattern to either English spelling or pronunciation; you just have to memorize it. (Though I could largely say the same of German and French noun genders, even if there are some patterns that are somewhat [but not entirely] consistent.) Meanwhile, spelling and pronunciation in German seems to be pretty bijective. If you know how an unfamiliar word is pronounced, you can generally accurately know how it's spelled, and if you how an unfamiliar word is spelled, you can generally accurately know how it's pronounced.