4 ms·
But people don't read letter by letter to recognize a word. The vast majority of readers are fluent and are seeing a word for the 1000th time. Optimizing for fo
by nh23423fefe 3y ago
But people don't read letter by letter to recognize a word. The vast majority of readers are fluent and are seeing a word for the 1000th time. Optimizing for foreign learners instead of native adults seems wrong.
Words vary in pronunciation across time and across regions and dialects. I would assume those words "used to" (which doesn't sound like it has a 'd') sound like they were written. So what would you do, rewrite the dictionary every couple centuries for zero gain?
- bojan 3y agoMaybe one of the reasons the pronunciation varies across time and regions is exactly because the pronunciation rules aren't really standardized, so people can get creative. I wonder if the languages with strict pronunciation rules tend to change less. In my native language we tend to get new words of course, but if I read a text from 100 years ago I will be able to pronounce every word correctly, even if the word is now archaic and fallen out of use. I might get the accent wrong, and indeed accents do vary across regions, and sometimes even between neighboring towns.
- nh23423fefe 3y agoThat reason doesn't make sense, because pronunciation has always varied across time and most people were illiterate in the past. the written word, is not the normative form of a language. words aren't made of letters, and letters aren't made of sounds.