5 ms·

You can only "spell it exactly how it sounds" in languages like Italian or Spanish, not in English.

by qq66 5y ago

lelandfe 5y ago
"Oaxaca," just like it sounds
- pessimizer 5y ago
  That's a really good example. Was it supposed to be a bad one? The only glaring exception I run into in Spanish is "que" being pronounced "ke."
  - lelandfe 5y ago
    In my learning, I've definitely found that holdover words with "X" are the strangest relative to what is taught. "Oaxaca" has at least two different pronunciations depending on where you are in Mexico, since the pronunciation has evolved over time. See also: xerez.
    - pessimizer 5y ago
      Not the best at Spanish, but it always seems to me that all "x"s drift based on location, not just a few, making it an accent for me rather than an inconsistency. "ll" is the same way.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > Not the best at Spanish, but it always seems to me that all "x"s drift based on location, not just a few, making it an accent for me rather than an inconsistency Doesn't seem that way to me; the native speakers I’ve known tend to pronounce the X’s different ways in: México / Oaxaca vs. Xochilmilco vs. Ixtlan / Tepexpan
        pessimizer 5y ago
        I'm not as familiar with American place names, but there's an obvious reason why those would have pronunciations that couldn't be spelled easily in Spanish. "X" in Mexican might be shorthand for sharp mystery consonant.
        dragonwriter 5y ago
        In each of those, the “x” originates from Nahuatl where it had a sound of (or close to) English “sh”, which is also the sound “x” had (maybe still has, though I’m pretty sure there has been shift in Iberian accents/dialects since then) in certain Iberian regional accents of Spanish at the time, which is how “x” got into the Spanish spelling; it wasn't a stand-in for a mystery consonant.
        pezezin 5y ago
        Your comment is correct. As far as I know, "x" still sounds /ʃ/ in Galician, Basque and Catalan. In Spanish, it became /x/ centuries ago, and the spelling changed to J/G. Nowadays you only see the X in old-fashioned spellings like Quixote, Xerez o Ximenez. https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reajuste_de_las_sibilantes_del_idioma_espa%C3%B1ol https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reajuste_de_las_sibilantes_del... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_Spanish_coronal_fricatives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_Spanis...
    - alanh 5y ago
      This is because such words are not derived from Latin like most Spanish words, but are from native languages.
- darebak 5y ago
  Yeah, but every language has those peculiarities in spelling. AFAIK Serbian Cyrillic is the closest one to "spell how you hear it" because every letter corresponds to a single sound and there's little deviation from this. With the Serbian Latin/Croatian alphabet it gets a little complicated because it uses digraphs such as lj(љ in Cyrillic), nj(њ)and dž(џ).
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    > With the Serbian Latin/Croatian alphabet it gets a little complicated because it uses digraphs such as lj(љ in Cyrillic), nj(њ)and dž(џ) People are extolling Italian here, but note that for those three sounds it uses the digraphs gl, gn, and gi.
- qq66 5y ago
  "Oaxaca" isn't Spanish, it's a Nahuatl loanword.
munk-a 5y ago
Even those have a whole bunch of exceptions. The best language for spelling by sound is probably German, it has an extremely clear pronunciation guide to the point where most first year German students can quite accurately read signs and essays aloud without having the faintest idea of what they're saying.
- narag 5y ago
  Even those have a whole bunch of exceptions Are you sure? I'm a native Spanish speaker and mastered the "whole bunch" (ce, ci, que, qui, gue, gui) by the age of four.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    Spanish is the one I'm familiar with and there are a bunch of collisions in pronunciations like b/v and h/j (which are sometimes discernable but often aren't) along with a fair number of silent letters.
    - thaumasiotes 5y ago
      > Spanish is the one I'm familiar with and there are a bunch of collisions in pronunciations like b/v and h/j (which are sometimes discernable but often aren't) That doesn't sound right. What variety of Spanish are you familiar with that sometimes distinguishes B from V?
      - narag 5y ago
        Exactly, there are none. Some persons make them a little different because they also speak other languages, like French or English where they're different. There's no problem wiht that, but it's not needed either.
    - narag 5y ago
      In Spanish B and V sounds exactly the same. H and J are strictly different. H is the only silent letter. Let me remind you that I was answering to your comment where you say: ...read signs and essays aloud without having the faintest idea of what they're saying. This can be done just learning the independent sound of each letter and the six exceptions that I mentioned. Graphic accent rules are a bit more complex, but we also learn them by the time we're seven or eight years, so we can use in our writing. They're not essential for reading.
Arnavion 5y ago
The statement was about a specific word, not the language as a whole.
dragonwriter 5y ago
Spanish can be problematic due to the influence of Nahautl, Quechua, and other languages of people colonized by Spain. But it's still a million times better than English.

You can only "spell it exactly how it sounds" in languages like Italian or Spanish, not in English.

by qq66 5y ago

You can only "spell it exactly how it sounds" in languages like Italian or Spanish, not in English.

lelandfe 5y ago

"Oaxaca," just like it sounds

pessimizer 5y ago
That's a really good example. Was it supposed to be a bad one? The only glaring exception I run into in Spanish is "que" being pronounced "ke."
- lelandfe 5y ago
  In my learning, I've definitely found that holdover words with "X" are the strangest relative to what is taught. "Oaxaca" has at least two different pronunciations depending on where you are in Mexico, since the pronunciation has evolved over time. See also: xerez.
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    Not the best at Spanish, but it always seems to me that all "x"s drift based on location, not just a few, making it an accent for me rather than an inconsistency. "ll" is the same way.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > Not the best at Spanish, but it always seems to me that all "x"s drift based on location, not just a few, making it an accent for me rather than an inconsistency Doesn't seem that way to me; the native speakers I’ve known tend to pronounce the X’s different ways in: México / Oaxaca vs. Xochilmilco vs. Ixtlan / Tepexpan
      - pessimizer 5y ago
        I'm not as familiar with American place names, but there's an obvious reason why those would have pronunciations that couldn't be spelled easily in Spanish. "X" in Mexican might be shorthand for sharp mystery consonant.
        dragonwriter 5y ago
        In each of those, the “x” originates from Nahuatl where it had a sound of (or close to) English “sh”, which is also the sound “x” had (maybe still has, though I’m pretty sure there has been shift in Iberian accents/dialects since then) in certain Iberian regional accents of Spanish at the time, which is how “x” got into the Spanish spelling; it wasn't a stand-in for a mystery consonant.
        pezezin 5y ago
        Your comment is correct. As far as I know, "x" still sounds /ʃ/ in Galician, Basque and Catalan. In Spanish, it became /x/ centuries ago, and the spelling changed to J/G. Nowadays you only see the X in old-fashioned spellings like Quixote, Xerez o Ximenez. https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reajuste_de_las_sibilantes_del_idioma_espa%C3%B1ol https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reajuste_de_las_sibilantes_del... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_Spanish_coronal_fricatives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_Spanis...
  - alanh 5y ago
    This is because such words are not derived from Latin like most Spanish words, but are from native languages.
darebak 5y ago
Yeah, but every language has those peculiarities in spelling. AFAIK Serbian Cyrillic is the closest one to "spell how you hear it" because every letter corresponds to a single sound and there's little deviation from this. With the Serbian Latin/Croatian alphabet it gets a little complicated because it uses digraphs such as lj(љ in Cyrillic), nj(њ)and dž(џ).
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  > With the Serbian Latin/Croatian alphabet it gets a little complicated because it uses digraphs such as lj(љ in Cyrillic), nj(њ)and dž(џ) People are extolling Italian here, but note that for those three sounds it uses the digraphs gl, gn, and gi.
qq66 5y ago
"Oaxaca" isn't Spanish, it's a Nahuatl loanword.

munk-a 5y ago

Even those have a whole bunch of exceptions. The best language for spelling by sound is probably German, it has an extremely clear pronunciation guide to the point where most first year German students can quite accurately read signs and essays aloud without having the faintest idea of what they're saying.

narag 5y ago
Even those have a whole bunch of exceptions Are you sure? I'm a native Spanish speaker and mastered the "whole bunch" (ce, ci, que, qui, gue, gui) by the age of four.
- munk-a 5y ago
  Spanish is the one I'm familiar with and there are a bunch of collisions in pronunciations like b/v and h/j (which are sometimes discernable but often aren't) along with a fair number of silent letters.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    > Spanish is the one I'm familiar with and there are a bunch of collisions in pronunciations like b/v and h/j (which are sometimes discernable but often aren't) That doesn't sound right. What variety of Spanish are you familiar with that sometimes distinguishes B from V?
    - narag 5y ago
      Exactly, there are none. Some persons make them a little different because they also speak other languages, like French or English where they're different. There's no problem wiht that, but it's not needed either.
  - narag 5y ago
    In Spanish B and V sounds exactly the same. H and J are strictly different. H is the only silent letter. Let me remind you that I was answering to your comment where you say: ...read signs and essays aloud without having the faintest idea of what they're saying. This can be done just learning the independent sound of each letter and the six exceptions that I mentioned. Graphic accent rules are a bit more complex, but we also learn them by the time we're seven or eight years, so we can use in our writing. They're not essential for reading.

Arnavion 5y ago

The statement was about a specific word, not the language as a whole.

dragonwriter 5y ago

Spanish can be problematic due to the influence of Nahautl, Quechua, and other languages of people colonized by Spain. But it's still a million times better than English.