From: utzoo!watmath!rvpalliende Newsgroups: net.nlang Title: Re: rvpalliende still reforming Article-I.D.: watmath.3134 Posted: Fri Jul 30 01:55:53 1982 Received: Fri Jul 30 07:00:23 1982 References: nsc.202 Just a few comments: The children I mentioned reading in grade 2 (it actually was grade 1) like five graders were reading phonetic spelling. It turns out that switching to normal spelling is easy, and children taught in phonetic spelling actually are like everybody else, despite the "handicap" ov being taught two spellings instead ov one. It's easier to learn French, Spanish, French, Italian and Roumanian? (What about Catalan?) Compare: English French Spanish Italian Portuguese philosophy philosophie filosifi'a filosofia filosofia chemistry chimie qui'mica chimica qui'mica(?) chorus choeur coro coro coro analysis analyse ana'lisis ?? ana'lisis(?) It turns out that Latin spelling for Greek words is used only in French (whose spelling is about as bad as English's) I've thought that people should pronounce the way they spell. But then: Have you ever said "kat-as-troaf" instead ov "kat-as-tro-fy"?. I have, and people react as surprised as when they see the spelling "ov". Other time I said "im-MAE-cher" and was corrected: "im-ma-CHOOR". People get more annoyed at strange pronunciation than at strange spelling. (Who can spell now, anyway?)