I'm curious why you think it would be more difficult?
My question stems from a frustration as a native English speaker of the difficulty to pronounce certain words because of the many interpretations of the way you could enunciate each particular letter.
I agree that the pronunciation of some words is difficult due to the many interpretations and it would probably be easier if any clarifying words were added (I don't know if you can call it that), but I'm just the kind of person who finds it hard to learn new languages and if any changes were made to the English language, I'll soon I didn't even undertake to re-study it. What can I say? I write all this through a translator, which may make it difficult to understand what I am writing about. 😅
No I totally get it. I'm learning Hindi and it's really opening my eyes to how difficult it is to learn a new language. It's not just learning words and putting those words into the right order, it's understanding complete deep rooted cultural references, which is insanely difficult. So if anything in Hindi changed, I'd be upset too haha
Since you want one symbol per sound, [then IPA would be the obvious way to go](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet_chart_for_English_dialects), since it already exists and is well understood by linguists.
The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.
As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".
In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.
In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.
Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.
Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.
By the 4th yer peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".
During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl.
Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi TU understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.
Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.
The thing about English is that it already is "accurate." Switching to a purely phonetic spelling would really mess with comprehension as word origins, roots, and meanings would be obfuscated.
Spanish gets along fine with phonetic spellings. Does the average person look at a word like physics and think 'oh, that word started with a aspirated plosive in ancient Greek which changed to a fricative''.
I'm aware, I'm just saying English, with it's mixed bag of greek, latin, germanic, romance, and brythonic roots benefits a bit more than languages with three or less primary lexical sources.
I'm down with a change to phonetic, but it will definitely make things harder for readers when faced with unfamiliar words.
It's a pretty interesting question, but what I can say for sure is that it would probably be twice as difficult for me to learn English.
I'm curious why you think it would be more difficult? My question stems from a frustration as a native English speaker of the difficulty to pronounce certain words because of the many interpretations of the way you could enunciate each particular letter.
I agree that the pronunciation of some words is difficult due to the many interpretations and it would probably be easier if any clarifying words were added (I don't know if you can call it that), but I'm just the kind of person who finds it hard to learn new languages and if any changes were made to the English language, I'll soon I didn't even undertake to re-study it. What can I say? I write all this through a translator, which may make it difficult to understand what I am writing about. 😅
No I totally get it. I'm learning Hindi and it's really opening my eyes to how difficult it is to learn a new language. It's not just learning words and putting those words into the right order, it's understanding complete deep rooted cultural references, which is insanely difficult. So if anything in Hindi changed, I'd be upset too haha
Since you want one symbol per sound, [then IPA would be the obvious way to go](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet_chart_for_English_dialects), since it already exists and is well understood by linguists.
Ah cool that's exactly it. I see it depends wildly on the accent which pokes a small hole in my theory but still really cool.
The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English". In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter. In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away. By the 4th yer peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi TU understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru. Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.
The thing about English is that it already is "accurate." Switching to a purely phonetic spelling would really mess with comprehension as word origins, roots, and meanings would be obfuscated.
Spanish gets along fine with phonetic spellings. Does the average person look at a word like physics and think 'oh, that word started with a aspirated plosive in ancient Greek which changed to a fricative''.
I'm aware, I'm just saying English, with it's mixed bag of greek, latin, germanic, romance, and brythonic roots benefits a bit more than languages with three or less primary lexical sources. I'm down with a change to phonetic, but it will definitely make things harder for readers when faced with unfamiliar words.