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> English spelling is only mildly complicated compared to the romance languages or arabic. I can't talk of Arabic, but within Romance languages there's a wide
by cabalamat 18y ago
> English spelling is only mildly complicated compared to the romance languages or arabic.
I can't talk of Arabic, but within Romance languages there's a wide range of difference over how phonetic they are. At one extreme there's Italian, wihch is spelt so regularly that there's no verb "to spell"; at the other extreme, in French, letters are often unprononounced. Spanish is somewhere between the two, because while there have been many sound shifts, the language is still spelt the way it was pronounced hundreds of years ago.
- kragen 18y agoBut there aren't a lot of differences in Spanish: sometimes "x" is "ks" and other times "j" (and which one can vary, for the same word, between regions); the "k" sound can be either "k" or "qu"/"c"; and outside of Spain, the "z"/"c" is indistinguishable from the "s". And there's the silent "h". And "ll" vs. "y", and occasionally "i" vs. "y". And then there are regular phonological shifts that vary by dialect, but those don't really pose a problem for spelling. But that's about the extent of the exceptions. It's very rare that I mispronounce a word after reading it, or misspell it after hearing it, the way I did as a child with "diarrhea" and "albeit" and "pe des tal" and no doubt dozens of others I can't even remember now.