Lingua Franca!

I agree with the statement that English spelling is unsystematic. Of course, there are some rules of English spelling, but there are also too many exceptions that are unpredictable. Even though many words have identical letter strings, they have different pronunciations, e.g. woman-women/once-only. On the other hand, many words have different letters, but they have identical sounds, e.g. through, blue, shoe, etc… Also, it is hard sometimes to guess the spelling of person’s name, e.g. Rachel or Rachael. I pick only some examples, but English spelling is really unsystematic, I think.

As we know, English spelling has been affected by a variety of many influences over the countries. From my point of view, I agree that English spelling is unsystematic. In fact, it is challenging for a lot of students. Even native speakers in English have difficulties with it. I think one of the reasons that makes it difficult is that there are a lot of words that are not spelled as they are pronounced. To illustrate that, in my case, as a student, I had a problem with the following words: tough (pronounced tuf) and dough( pronounced doe-long "o"). This difference between spelling and pronunciation was very confusing.
However, as an English teacher and not as a student, I would say to my students that English spelling is a technique and systematic.One of the
reasons is I think that students write more willingly if they feel confident with their spelling. At the same time, I want to to teach them how to use a dictionary and how to improve their spelling. Most important to spell the English words correctly is to find their own way that works for them.
Finally, I believe that English spelling is an important communication skill especially in reading and writing. Unfortunately, in writing we can not use the body language to communicate with others as in speaking. Thus, we have to learn English spelling by using our own abilities.

I agree about with the statement that English spelling is unsystematic.Many a times we encounter very simple word but we find that they have a quite a different pronunciation as compared to other similar word. e.g. the pronunciation of 'cut', 'but' is quite different from 'put'. 'word' & 'lord'. Another is 'bread' and 'break'. And there are lot many. I google searched about this anamoly in pronunciation and this link gives more examples :
http://esl.fis.edu/grammar/easy/spell.htm
On my own I also hesitate to pronounce a word well when I see it for the first time. I feel lucky that most of the words I am able to pronounce well because I started learning English very early and teachers were good at English. I think the difference in pronunciation may be due to history behind each word, like how it was coined. English has got lot of words from other classical languages like Latin, Greek and many other.

Response To J Kaur: I agree with her statement. I also started to learn English very early and I think the age is very important to learn a language. It is very different learning English as a child and learning English as an adult. It is interesting that each student (especially when they are from several countries) has different kind of spelling mistakes. Another issue is that learning English depends on the teacher. For example,how an English teacher can motivate you to learn and study a new language....All of them are important because they can "built" your learning in a foreign language.

Despina , I was really wondering how English spelling can be technique when we come across many words whose pronunciation is always so different from what we anticipate. One thing that comes to my mind is the spelling bee contests held all over the world. I think these contests tell us there is some technique behind pronunciation and spellings
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFj1-Iu7UI8

Response To J Kaur: Although English spelling is unsystematic and chaotic I think it can be a technique for a lot of students. For me as Greek, I easily understood that English words has many roots from Greek language.There are a lot of similarities with definitions,etymology, preffixes, suffixes, affixes etc. However, there are many strategies that students can follow.For example, if they listen a word they should break the word in to syllabus. Then, they can start with the easy sounds and write the word. Of course, most important as English teachers,is to teach students to love reading. English books should be their "friends".The more that they see the words on books the more naturally it come to them. They also can keep a spelling notebook with the words that they have trouble.Thus, they can review the words easily and write them correctly.

I agree with the statement that English spelling is unsystematic. There are many words that I cannot spell from hearing. Since I began to learn English I have been problem with those types of speｌlings such as vehicle, debt, tough. I needed to memorize all these words from repeated practice of spelling. Therefore, even today I'm not happy when I found a word that makes me confuse. However, It is crucial to learn spellings in order to be a good reader or writer. As I have had confusion in spelling, many English learners especially children must be confused by unsystematic spelling. I'm wondering if memorizing is the only way to acquire the correct spelling of these words.

Hi Megumi, memorization will help but at the same time if we read a lot and then we come across words so many times that we develop a good sense of spellings. Thus, reading is the key to many things : context, vocabulary, spelling and then developing our own discourse.

I agree to the statement English spelling is unsystematic. When I was an elementary student I had a problem about the English spelling because there are many silent consonants in English. For instance, the word “Christmas” remind me an ashamed case. When I was the third grade I made several Christmas card for my classmates. That time I want to be proud of my English to my friends but I write a wrong spelling, “chrismas” in front of the card because of the sound. Therefore, after that time, I pronounced “t” sound when I write the spelling “Christmas” to prevent from that humiliated experience. That is why I totally agree the upper statement.

Yes, English spelling is really hard to learn but I cannot say it is totally unsystematic. It is not fair to call it unsystematic because there are also many rules_with many exceptions of course!_ that can help us remember or guess the way a word or expresion is pronunced. For some information about some of these rules read English pronunciation written by Peter Roach.

Respond to the J Kaur) I love your example; the pronunciation of 'cut', 'but' is quite different from 'put' because I just think about the consonants of those problems. Even though those words have the same vowel, ‘u’, we have to pronounce differently. Therefore the beginners have to memorize the exceptional words even though there are a lot of exceptions about the English spelling. Also I think it is important that when students memorize the spelling they have to pronounce the real sound, even though some words have different sound to others they already know or some words are missing sounds.

Respond to the Megumi) I also have same thought that students have to memorize the spelling because of several exceptions. However when students memorize the exceptions of the spelling I think that speaking out the exact sound of the words is very important to them. In other words, I believe that they have to memorize both sound and spelling not just focus on writing the spelling.

I agree that English spelling is really unsystematic for me. If English spelling is systematic, everyone can study English vocabulary more easily. However, frankly speaking, English spelling is from Latin, Greek, for this reason, English spelling combined and mixed.Especially, voiceless spelling system makes me more confused to know the exact spelling. For instance, 'Knowledge' pronunciation sounds like 'Knowlege' or 'knowlige' etc. At first when I learned this word, I was curious and felt difficult to memorize it.

I agree with Sylviehur's comment. She mentioned about 'woman-women'. If we have to think about singular&plural, we usually put 's' or 'es' or 'ies'. However 'woman' is singular, 'women' is plural. I think this is kind of unsystematic in spelling-rule. This kind of unsystematic rule makes us to learn English more difficult.

I agree with Min-Ji. English spelling is not the same like sound exactly. There are some examples : 'knowledge', 'Christmas', 'gym', 'tough' etc. Therefore, when we learn new vocabulary, we should be concentrate on the irregular spelling more.

I think English spelling relating to its pronunciation is RELATIVELY systematic with variations. If English spelling does not have the systematic characteristics, we should have learned to pronounce and memorized each word and its pronunciation whenever we find new words. Generally, we try to sound it out when we find an unfamiliar/new word in the context even though we pronounce the word quite incorrectly at first. In my opinion, this kind of trial demonstrates that English spelling is relatively systematic. If there are no (systematic) rules of spelling and pronunciation, no one might try to pronounce it. Of course, English spelling relating to pronunciation has still MANY exceptions. Also, it is true that many people who are learning English can feel that those irregularities would be big challenges. However, I think that lots of exposure to reading, writing, listening, and speaking would be good solution.

I can't say English spelling is unsystematic easily when I remember the word of my mentor in my university, "There is no rules without exceptions" and the history of English. As we can learn spelling by phonics, it’s systematic to some extent. Because of the huge amount of rules and exceptions, it may be called “unsystematic”.

To Despina > “even native speakers have difficulties”. I remember native English teacher misspelled in class. My host mother doesn’t like to text because not only her typing is slow, but also she sometimes wonders about spelling although she is high-educated! One day, she asked me about the spelling that “soccer” has double “c” to be sure. I was surprised and also convinced English spelling is hard.

I agree that English spelling is unsystematic. I can't match spelling and pronunciation. Especially, when I learned some words like ghost and honest, I had problems with pronunciation. Of course, there are some rules in English. But, it's too hard to know the rules. English has many borrowings. For example, the word 'handkerchief' is pronounced as /hǽŋkərtʃif/, not hand-ker-chief. If I compare with Korean and English, Korean is systematic. When people learn Korean, they can pronounce the Korean words, even if they don't know the meaning. Korean exactly matches with spelling and pronunciation. However, people should learn the rules which is how to pronounce. Also, there are some exception in English.

I agree with Megumi. I can't guess the spelling with only hearing the word, even thought the speaker pronounces correctly. It makes students to memorize spelling. When I write an essay, I write misspelling. Also, when I speak English, I pronounce wrong way. If I don't know a phonetic symbol of the word, I can't often pronounce correctly.

I have same experience with Minji. When I made Christmas cards, I wrote 'Chrismas'. There is no sound /t/. But, my friends made same mistake with me. After that, I pronounced /t/. Those words make students hard. When they memorize new words, they have to memorize the sound and spelling. Sometimes, students forgive memorizing pronunciation of words. They often pronounce words based on spelling. For example, /e/ in YouTube is not pronounced. However, they pronounce /e/ to remember the spelling.

I totally agree with the statement that English spelling is unsystematic. There are lots of vocabularies that make me confused. For instance, when I was an elementary school student I didn’t know that when I have to pronounce ‘u’ like ‘ʌ̀n’ or ‘jùː’(unbelievable or university). And, ‘ch’ is pronounced as ‘tʃí’ and ‘kə’ (cheese and charisma). Also, silent consonant words were not familiar with me when I started to learn English. In addition a word ‘direct’ is pronounced both /dirékt/, and /dairékt/. That is, I think there aren’t fixed rules, so we can call it both ways, but it makes that learners feel confused. Because of these cases, I sometimes consult a dictionary to check pronunciation and spelling even the word I already known.

I agree with the commonly heard statement that English spelling is unsystematic. I can feel whenever I memorize vocabularies. Of course there are rule that we can apply when we memorize vocabularies. However there is also exception all the time. Especially silent consonant makes me very confuse. For instance, knife, honest, knowledge, listen. We don’t pronounce literally. One more thing that we have to make sure when we study how to pronounce vocabulary is that the vocabulary like “often” can be pronounce “often” and also “ofen” . I’m thinking that is there any way that we can’t be confused when we pronounce new vocabulary? I guess, no. we got to just memorize whenever we encounter new vocabulary.

Sunny,that was what I think. Because much English vocabulary came from Greek and Latin etc.., pronouncing English vocabulary is unsystematic. For the first time, we try to follow rules, and then we have to memorize words. I think that’s why we feel so hard when we study English even if we study grammatical rules.

Hi~ Min Ji^^
I also have an experience same as you. When I pronounced a word ‘Christian’ at first time, I said / kríst”i”ən/ not / krístʃən/. However, we have to pronounce like /krìst”i”ǽnə/ when we call the name ‘Christina’. It is really natural to pronounce that kind of thing to native speakers, but it is little bit hard to learners who learn English. Therefore, I think that when we memorize some vocabularies we also have to pay attention about pronunciation.

Ellen, I know. There are too many exceptions when we pronounce vocabulary, and vocabulary doesn’t match spelling and pronunciation. I was so much confused when I was a little but I got used to understand it, so sometimes I just feel it like native like. lol English is so complicate compare to Korean which is very systematic.

Hi~ Ellen^^
I agree with that Korean is systematic that different from English. As you know that Christophe, who learns Korean, can write down in Korean when we said our names to him also read it. However, in English we sometimes need to say the letters for some vocabularies because sometimes it is not literally pronounced. If English has systematic rules, we can learn English little bit easily.

I agree that English spelling is unsystematic. When I just started to learn English, I learned that ‘o’ pronounced as /ou/. But many words with ‘o’ pronounced differently with what I’ve learned. I knew what ‘color’ means and how to pronounce it, but I didn’t know how to spell that. And when I knew how ‘color’ is spelled, I thought them as two different words. I knew how it sounds because I had heard of it, but I couldn’t relate them as a same word. And at that time I realized that English spelling is unsystematic.

I agree that English spelling is very unsystematic and is hard to learn for students. I think it is one of the hardest languages to learn in terms of spelling because many languages like Spanish and Japanese have systematic way of reading the word. The variations of the vowel sounds are not as board as English. As I mentioned before, people who are competitors on the Spelling Bee contests are amazing.

Response to tomomi: I agree with you that many native speakers don't have correct spelling because native speakers learned English primarily through audio methods. Especially in today's world, more and more people are relying on spell check and auto-correct so when it comes to writing essays and sentences on paper, students will have many spelling mistakes.

Response to ellen: I agree with you that in English there are many exceptions. My friend once said that in English there are "more exceptions than rules." :) I also agree that Korean is systematic because I have a similar experience when I was learning Japanese. Once I have learned all the hiragana and katakana, I can pronounce the word even if I didn't know the meaning. Chinese is different in the sense that one sound matches one character. There are only a few words in Cantonese that has two pronunciations for a character but in general, one character matches one sound.

I agree with the statement that English spelling is unsystematic. I also think that many languages have an area, where language is constanly changing in spelling. For example, the way Korean's spell different words can change in a generation or two.When I was in middle school, I read Anne in Green Gables, and Anne always insisted that the "e" in the end of her name was to be spelled. This meant a lot to me. Even if I didn't know how to spell great, I learned that spelling English is unsystematic.However, at times, when I got with my tutor, he asked me once how Asians are able to spell so well.However, I still have a problem spelling. For example, the dinosaur pterodactyl. In Korea, we pronunce it with the P, but in America, the P is taken out of the word.The kind of words that ignore consonants in pronunciation are very hard for me to spell.

Response to J. Kaur
First off, thank you for introducing that website to me, It was helpful to study. If different pronunciations are due to historical backgrounds, I never thought about that. This is very interesting to me. Could you share with me if you have anything that explains this?

Response to Sunny
I agree with your response, and I also think that when consonants are pronunced, it's hard to spell. Also, like you said, because English uses many words from other languages, like Latin, English gets more complex and hard to use. However, since there are rules, you should learn those first, and then read books about exceptional words. I think that's something I need to learn on my own. Also, in the future, when I become a teacher, I will have to think about how to effectively teach this to students

I agree with the idea that English spelling is unsystematic. There are many rules and exceptions. But at the same time, I think that even Japanese has a lot of them. And I dont know what the rules and exeptions are. I dont think that my parents or teachers taught me.Maybe I have acquired them unconsciously.So we should acquire unsystematic spelling by practicing a lot. However, even if there are many exceptions, knowing the rules helps students a lot. So teachers should know a lot of rules and let students memorize words more easily.

Even the best rules have their exceptions, and this is English spelling. This can be inferred that English spelling is unsystematic because accents and pronunciations can be changed by human beings so therefore there is no logic to followed. In addition, dictionary is being modified consistently, but there are several rules of English spelling can be followed. Even though it is a little bit complicate, we still can learn because language is created by human being.

Hiii Joanna,

I also watched the " Spelling bee", and those kids were amazing. They could find out a way to remember language rules by using their own approach. Can we considered English spelling is unsystamic? The answer might be uncertain because people do find out its clue to followed. Like what I said, spoken English and written English are quite different, and it can be changed easily.

Response to Shiva and Tomomi: It is right there are rules in English spelling system, but there are "many" exceptions more than rules, I think. If we learn English system more systematically on a long-term basis, we may understand it more readily. Tomomi, there are some Koreans who misspell in Korean, even though they are educated. I cannot say I know well about my own language, same as English speakers. :-)

Hii Irene and Minji,

You guys opinions are the common problem of language learners like Asian, sometimes the spelling doesnt mean it pronunciation certainly so we will have incorrect pronunciation. English spelling is illogical, and it is hard to follow. But if we find out the clue of English spelling, we can remember vocabulary simply and quickly although it is still difficult for me, though.

There are many useful websites which includes many practical English spelling rules, if you guys want to know I can give it to you when we meet in class.

Here are some English spelling rules:

1. -er/est
2. -ing/ed
3. -ly
4. -s
5. -ible/able
6. -ie/-ei

Response to Joanna: As you mentioned, English spelling is hard due to vowel variations. Even though I don't know Japanese very well, but I can guess how to pronounce new words by following the spelling system. Also, auto spelling check, such as MS Word, makes people spell words wrongly more and more.

Response to Tomomi : I agree with you and I’ve had same experience when I learned English from native speaker. Sometimes students corrected the spelling mistakes which native English teacher wrote on the board. At that time, I didn’t know why they made such mistakes. But now I came to understand that English spelling is also difficult for native speakers too. And the reason is that they learned English through audio methods like Joanna mentioned.

Response to Ellen : I agree with that there are some rules in English spelling, but it’s hard to know the rules. So When I learn new English words I always have to check their pronunciation. Otherwise I memorize words with wrong pronunciation. So when we learn new words we have to remember spelling and how they’re pronounced. When I learned Japanese, I didn’t have any problem with pronouncing any word, once I learned spelling system. And compare to Japanese or Korean, English spelling is unsystematic.

Dear everyone, right! All of us believe that English spelling is unsystematic_though the degree of this disagreement varies. But, have you noticed that there is a trend that is taking English spelling toward simplification? For example, just compare British spelling and American sspelling; now we don't write 'colour' but 'color' or more recent technic for 'technique' and 'ye' instead of 'you'. Yes, we are lucky learning the easier system. May be we can predict that it will be easier for the next generation. But for the time being, the best way to cope with this unsystematicity is learning the pronunciation of a new word by reading its phonetic spelling in a dictionary instead of being mislead by the orthographic form,. And after all, that's why IPA was introduced in late ninteenth.

Question for Sylvie: You already know the writing system for three or four languages. Which one is the most difficult one in terms of spelling? You might say French is easier but there are some negative aspects of French spelling system. For example, I never understand why we should sometimes waste 10 to 15 letters for a monosyllabic word. So, every language has certain features that might make learning it a little bit more challenging and English is not an exception.

To every one: come on everyone, don't put all the blame on English only.

I reason I attribute to the unsystematic nature of English spelling is that it is the lingua franca and it has influence from all the world on its system. While my own language Punjabi does not have much influence from other langauges only the regional languages have influence on it. So the world language has influences from all over and thus it must be having lots of exceptions in its rules. pull push put sound similar as they denote similar kind of action. put does not rhyme with cut or but. We have to think about categories of pronunciations and spelling and create a more logical way of handling spellings.

Response to Shiva: I cannot say which one is the most difficult one in terms of spelling, because all of them are foreign languages for me anyway. I can say the easiest one is Korean for sure. :-) As Jagdeep said English has been influenced by other languages, so it has more variable and complicated spelling system. Maybe depending on individuals, they think whether certain language has systematic spelling rules or not. If they learn those rules more systematically from the beginning, they feel it is systematic.

To Sylvie, Joanna & jhsong > Oh, I've never realized that Japanese is systematic! Comparing with other languages sounds interesting. Through all comments, I could confirm how much English is influenced by outer factors. As many of you already mentioned, practicing writing with reading is the only way to acquire proper spelling&pronunciation.

I agree with Olivia. We got to just memorize whenever we encounter new vocabulary, And have you ever felt that it is easier to memorize English spelling now than before? I felt so. That's because I have memorized many words and acquired some rules unconsciously though nobody told me. Memorizing words helps us memorize more words.

I wrote that there are many rules and exceptions in Japanese before. But I changed my mind after I saw many classmates' comments that Korean exactly matches with spelling and pronunciation. When I thought about Japanese, I found that Japanese also matches with spelling and pronunciation. I did not know that! Japanese is systematic compared with English and almost no exceptions! Wow it's new to me.

I agree with the statement that English spelling is unsystematic. While German is very systematic, English is may be half and half. That’s why I have to memorize some English words carefully and sometimes I can predict spelling what I hear because some words are spelled as pronounced. That means somehow English spelling has a system. When I had learn German in high school, work for memorize words are pretty easier than English. German spelling is systematic and I can predict spelling and remember well. (Now nothing I remember though.) Similarly while Korean is very ,ever I know most systematic, (If I am wrong correct me.)Japanese spelling system is pretty harder even Japanese. For instance, people can’t read others name and ask how they pronounce that name.
Enlgish spelling is unsystematic + systematic and a little bit closer unsystematic.

I agree with joannas espression. ''more exceptions than rules" and in terms of 'kanzi' like Chinese and Japanes , one kanzi has many sounds and it makes people can't read easly. one kanzi don't matches one character. that's why japanese reading is much difficult than English for me.

Irene, I agree with you. We have the same problem English sound system makes learners get confused. If you consult a dictionary to check pronunciation and spelling even the word you already known, you are very good student. And I think the way to learn English is good aptitude.

My hudsband wrote down UCI like this. 'YOU SEE I'
We are study at 'YOU SEE I' TEFL program! :)

J Kuar >>Thank you for your respond. As you said memorizing is not the only way that we can acquire correct spellings. Reading can help our good sense of spelling too. Even though there is no direct solution, still some exercises can help sense of spelling. Thank you for your nice thought. It helped me feel better.

Kotaro>> I also realized from everyone's comments that Korean and Japanese spelling are more systematic than English. Even Japanese I haven't thought about it before that pronunciation and spelling matches each other. It is interesting fact to me. If English spelling was systematic, I would not have problem with spelling so much.

[Response to Chiyun Kim] I strongly agree with your saying that Korean is the most systematic language. Because each consonant and each vowel of Korean have just one phonetic value, we can say that Korean is very systematic in spelling and pronunciation. That’s why people can easily read it only if they recognize Korean letters.

[Response to Despina & Tomomi] I agree that even native speakers have some difficult in spelling some words. However, I believe that most native speakers can pronounce new words even if they see the words for the first time. It means.. if we emphasize memorizing or learning words related to spelling, English can be hard to learn and might be kind of unsystematic language. However, if we focus on its pronunciation related to spelling, in my opinion, English might be relatively systematic (even though we do not still know the underlying system)

First,I wanna say sorry from everyone because of my late response:(
I hope u can forgive me!!!!
As for the question, I agree about the statement that English spelling is unsystematic like most of u guys. Especially when I think my own language we prononce the each letters same as we spell, in Turkish. For example, "apple" in English they pronounce it " ae pal" however in Turkish it means that "elma" and we pronounce it as an "elma" same . So, for Turkish students pronouciation is very confusing for the first time but after in a while they get use to it.

I agree with Jagdeep about the hesitation. For me is the same whenever I see a new word I hesitate to pronounce it, because spelling and pronounciation are totally different when I compare with Turkish language.

I agree Despina too. I had a problem with some words like Despina like tough ( tuf) and dough (doe) and many that kind of words in english. Even I can use these words while I am speaking, when someone ask me the spelling, I stuck.

I agree Jagdeep about the reading. Even it takes time it is a main key to develop spelling, because you are getting familiar the words while you are reading.

I agree Sylviehur's comment about " woman & women ". When I get a trouble with that kinds of words. Although when I was in Texas I was worned my teacher, I still have problem with those kind of words, I hate it.