Pronunciation is not predictable in English. It may be more predictable in other languages, but there are many situations in English where the same sequence of letters can make a different sound altogether. The obvious disadvantage is that it can make the language much more difficult to learn. However, there is an advantage to unpredictable pronunciation. It can improve reading comprehensibility by keeping the spelling stable. Here's an example: note the different sounds of "
s" for the words
cats and
dogs. The former takes an
s sound and the latter takes a
z sound, but both are spelled with
s.
Some more fun with sounds and spellingNote the
bolded letters in the following sentence all make a different sound, despite the identical spelling:
She s
aid you l
aid the pl
aid tie on the ch
air.
In the following word pairs, just
one letter is changed but the pronunciation is significantly altered:
encourage -> en
tourage
revenges -> reven
ues
karate -> karat
shideous -> hideou
tballets -> b
ullets
telephone -> telephon
y
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