I think they pronounce them non-phonetically, and I'm not really sure what's confusing about that. Pronunciation differing from spelling is literally what it me

I think they pronounce them non-phonetically, and I'm not really sure what's confusing about that. Pronunciation differing from spelling is literally what it means to say something isn't phonetic; if I accepted the spelling of other non-phonetic words as proof that something is phonetic, then everything by definition would be phonetic, and the entire concept would be pointless. In my mind, the natural phonetic spelling of "le" is an L sound followed by an E sound. Works like "truffle" and "turtle" have an E sound followed by an L sound. I don't think that's phonetic.