I’m picking “Colonel” needs to be respelled to match how it’s pronounced.

Try to pick a word no one else has picked. What word are you respelling?

  • @[email protected]
    16•2 years ago

    Oh boy, a word wouldn’t be enough.

    I would make English as consistent as Spanish is regarding phonetical consistency, or even more.

    Oh, you have never seen this word ever before and you don’t know how to pronounce it? No worries, these universal rules will allow you just get it right, because letters always sound the same!

      • ℕ𝕖𝕞𝕠
        4•2 years ago

        I dunno, Oaxaca seems pretty straightforward. oa is pronounced kinda like “ua”, I guess, but midword x is usually a “hh” sound anyway so that’s the only slightly weird thing.

      • Carlos SolísEnglish
        1•2 years ago

        Fun fact, the Spanish X used to be pronounced like the Greek χ, which is why Meχico, Teχas and Oaχaca are pronounced the way they are now in English (formerly like a “kh” and now like a “ks”)

    • Ataraxia
      1•2 years ago

      I mean knowing romance languages makes spelling in English easy. Also knowing something about Greek and Latin. Understanding the root of a word etc makes it a lot easier.

      • ᗪIᐯEᖇGEᑎTᕼᗩᖇᗰOᑎIᑕᔕ
        1•2 years ago

        Right about spelling. For a non-native, it becomes somewhat difficult when it is about the “right” pronunciation of the written language. There’s a lot of French influence for example. Now they have a lot of French words, some feel horribly mispronounced and some aren’t. And then there’s a lot of dialects so that mixing pronunciations can hardly be avoided.

    • @[email protected]
      3•2 years ago

      English is pretty good (generally) at doing the same thing.

      Y’all are just bringing up words that English stole from other languages.

      You can use phonetics to figure out how to pronounce most words in English.

      • Chrissie
        1•2 years ago

        The amount of words that are not “stolen” from other languages is neglible…

        Cat from German Katze, from Latin catta
        Car(t) from German Karren
        Kitchen grom German Küche
        Bike/Bicycle from French bicycle
        Leaf from German Laub
        Beef, mutton, pigeon from French boeuf, mouton, pigeon
        Cow, sheep, dove from German Kuh, Schaf, Taube
        Computer from Latin computare
        Sun and moon from German Sonne and Mond
        Lunatic from Latina luna
        Death from German Tod
        Snug from Norse snøggr
        Funny from Swedish fånig
        Breeze from Spanish brisa
        Ranch from Spanish rancha
        Brave from Italian bravo
        Arcade from Italian arcata
        Dildo from Italian diletto
        …

      • @[email protected]OP
        4•2 years ago

        We just really wish when we stole them we changed the spelling to match the pronunciation if we wanted the pronunciation to stay the same of where we stole it from.

    • @[email protected]
      1•2 years ago

      The only one they changed is the double l. ll to sounds like a y. But in some circles they consider that a seperate letter to the Spanish alphabet. Overall it is fairly consistent.

      Even better, Spanish words are typically broken into two (or is it to or too) letter syllables.

    • @[email protected]OP
      10•2 years ago

      I like this one because I instantly knew what word it was despite it having a brand new spelling. Almost like letters should have meanings.

      • @[email protected]
        2•2 years ago

        English isn’t my native language. I thought for years (and I’m talking of 10+) it would be pronounced “ree-sipe”.

      • wmcduff
        5•2 years ago

        I was wondering if Reese pee was liquid peanut butter for a moment.

  • @[email protected]
    23•2 years ago

    I just wish we spelled things in a more German-‘esk’ fashion. They use K more appropriately. Examples such as “panik” and “akkordeon” for accordion. I find their spelling to be more straightforward and sensical.

  • @[email protected]
    18•2 years ago

    All those words that are pronounce the same but have completely different meanings. Particularly the common words.

    To two too

    No know

    Their there

    By buy bye

    Then there there ones spelt the same but two different meanings and silent letters to even be better.

    Go right, you’re right.

    Didn’t know how messed up English spelling/pronunciation is till I started to learn Spanish and nearly every word is pronounced exactly as spelled.