Yes, I was being a bit facetious with the remark about spelling rules. I was guessing if I stated "English has an unusually defective orthography", people would

Yes, I was being a bit facetious with the remark about spelling rules. I was guessing if I stated "English has an unusually defective orthography", people would not get what I meant. But since you work in education, you probably do. If you have a language where a learner cannot derive spelling from phonetics, or phonetics from spelling, a learner instead has to memorize the spelling _and_ pronunciation of every word. This is highly unusual, and suboptimal! My hyperbolic statement was that, from the perspectice of the learner, there might as well not be any spelling rules because you have to memorize everything by rote. I don't know why English spelling reform has never happened (AFAIK) but it's for sure making life a lot more difficult for dyslectics or people with learning disabilities.