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Re:French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’ by maleldil on Wednesday June 09, 2021 @06:10PM (#27453945)
I think you're confusing things. A difference between the number of written characters and the number of phonemes doesn't make a language "non-phonetic" if you mean consistency between spelling and pronunciation.

What matters is that a sequence of symbols _consistently_ matches a phoneme. For example, you'll find that the "u" phoneme is often written as "ou" in French. Same thing for the "o" sound and "eau" (you misspelt "beaucoup").

What I would consider "non-phonetic" is the set "though", "through", "thorough", and "thought" in English, where "ough" has four different sounds.

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