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Re:Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard (1992) by autarch on Tuesday April 22, 2014 @02:45AM (#7626159)
My wife is from Taiwan and she complains about English spelling all the time.
Re:Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard (1992) by blencdr on Tuesday April 22, 2014 @04:05AM (#7626374)
She should try French, she won't complain anymore about english spelling ^_^
Re:Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard (1992) by jnbiche on Tuesday April 22, 2014 @05:10AM (#7626533)
French spelling is quite regular. Once you know the system, you know how to spell almost any word. The only issue is that some letters are not pronounced.
Re:Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard (1992) by S4M on Tuesday April 22, 2014 @07:09AM (#7626914)
Dude no. I am French native speaker, and think that French spelling is way harder. I am even starting to suspect that the spelling of the French language was made hard on purpose, so someone who didn't get a proper education would be spotted easily to his/her bad spelling.
Re:Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard (1992) by frooxie on Tuesday April 22, 2014 @10:03AM (#7627671)
Really? I'd be curious to hear what French words are as bad as the 11 pronunciations of "ough" in English ("Though the tough cough and hiccough plough him through)". Or, the other way around, there's the /eɪ/ diphthong, which can be spelled a, a…e, aa, ae, ai, ai...e, aig, aigh, al, ao, au, ay, e (é), e...e, ea, eg, ei, ei...e, eig, eigh, ee (ée), eh, er, es, et, ey, ez, ie, oeh, ue, or uet in the words bass, rate, quaalude, reggae, rain, cocaine, arraign, straight, Ralph, gaol, gauge, pay, ukulele, crepe, steak, thegn, veil, beige, reign, eight, matinee, eh, dossier, demesne, ballet, obey, chez, lingerie, boehmite, dengue, sobriquet. Not to mention place names like Featheringstonehaugh (pronounced "Fan-shaw"). What are the most difficult things about spelling French?
Re:Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard (1992) by S4M on Tuesday April 22, 2014 @05:49PM (#7630717)
Well, in my opinion, English is hard to pronounce (for example, it impossible to know to to pronounce the word 'live' without context) and French is hard to spell.

Since you mention the /eɪ/ diphthong, in French it can be spelled é, ée, et, ed, er, ai, and many others. What is making the French spelling harder, I think, is that many letters are not pronounced, and some words have the same pronunciation with a different spelling (for example: cou - neck - and coup - hit). I can't think of anything in particular, but it all lies in the fact that many letters are not pronounced. I found this website - in French - where you can have fun testing your French spelling: http://timbresdelorthographe.com/

Re:Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard (1992) by iopq on Tuesday April 22, 2014 @12:42PM (#7628707)
That's a little bit cheating, you're adding silent consonants to the vowel when they're not pronounced at all.

I could say that in Russian the sound [о] can be spelled ол as in солнце, but that would be bullshit. Russian is a largely phonetic language, it's just that consonant clusters get simplified in pronunciation.

Funny how half of your list are also French words

Re:Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard (1992) by thaumasiotes on Thursday April 24, 2014 @03:42AM (#7638924)
11 pronunciations of "ough"? I've always heard it as seven:

thought, though, through, tough, trough, plough, and, somewhat questionably, hiccough.

What are the others supposed to be?

Re:Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard (1992) by frooxie on Friday April 25, 2014 @07:07PM (#7649642)
The number depends on the dialect. Wikipedia describes it as "at least six pronunciations in North American English and over ten in British English", listing ten of them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ough_%28orthography%29
Re:Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard (1992) by username42 on Tuesday April 22, 2014 @10:00AM (#7627649)
I thought that it was quite regular. I have two little girl 8 and 10 yo. I can ensure you they are learning tons of exceptions I did not realise.
Re:Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard (1992) by ithkuil on Tuesday April 22, 2014 @05:06AM (#7626525)
sure, in English the exceptions are so frequent you cannot possibly forget that you are supposed to learn each word separately. in French you can fall to a few traps, but most of the vocabulary follows complicated yet regular rules.