> "If not for pronunciation, what else is spelling about?" Of course we should be able to read words more or less just by spelling out the letters according to

> "If not for pronunciation, what else is spelling about?" Of course we should be able to read words more or less just by spelling out the letters according to simple rules. In this regard "my" language is far better. We however have to deal with "word genders" (mostly arbitrarily assigned it seems for me) and other rules that makes little sense other than from an historical perspective. > there are several groups of sounds which the non-francophones do not distinguish, while the francophones cannot understand how they may be confused with one another. Common problem : ) An immigrant arab who lived close to my place advertised a "water bomb" for sale in the local newspaper. It turned out to be a water pump. This was funny for us (many years ago) but the reason was obvious: he couldn't hear the difference between b and p.