[mmarq]

In English you have to know a word in order to pronounce it.

The “ou” diphthong in “hound” and “double” or “would” is pronounced differently. Or “ieu” in “lieutenant” vs “lieu”. Or “oo” in “poor” vs “root” Or “berry” in “berry” vs “strawberry”

I could go on forever. There’s no other western language I know of that behaves like that.

[cameronh90]

English is a quasi-phonetic language in that most words can be mostly pronounced how they're written, but in some cases it inherits the pronunciation of the language the word came from. I'd imagine many English speakers would consider this an undesirable quirk, though.

Indeed, there has been a tendency over the centuries, particularly in the US, to move towards writing words how they sound or pronouncing words how they're written. Lieutenant is an interesting example, since in the UK we pronounce that "lef-tenant" traditionally, but the US moved to the (IMO superior) "lieu-tenant". Nowadays, most young people would probably use the US pronunciation.

I do take some slight umbrage with the implication that some people seem to be making in this thread that language features can't be criticised or that one language can't be better than another. I'm don't see why this would necessarily be true. Even with spoken languages. There are a ton of annoying aspects to English that simply aren't issues in other languages, and I think it's fair to criticise other languages for their failings too. This is especially true of writing systems, which are human inventions rather than something we learn intuitively.

Logographic/logo-syllabic orthographies are harder to learn and remain proficient at than alphabets/abjads, for native speakers and second language learners alike. Alphabets are an innovation that improved on ancient orthographies and enabled a wider range of people to be able to communicate as easily by writing as they do by speaking. Besides the issue mentioned in the article, the writing systems in China/Japan are associated with other issues we rarely see here. Even dictionaries are a non-obvious challenge with logographic languages, which has resulted in several competing ways to sort words.

[int_19h]

I don't think one can reasonably claim that in English "words are mostly pronounced how they're written". I mean, "i" can stand for /i/, /ɪ/, or /aɪ/, for example (and also for /ə/ if you don't count "ir" as a distinct grapheme). Although vowels at least (mostly) follow some predictable patterns based on syllables - but e.g. it's impossible to say whether "ch" stands for /k/, /tʃ/, /ʃ/, or /x/ without knowing the etymology of the word.

[_qbxi]

Americans pronounce "lieutenant" closer to the native French pronunciation.

[lsaferite]

> “ieu” in “lieutenant” vs “lieu”

> “berry” in “berry” vs “strawberry”

Am I misunderstanding the point you are making or is my pronunciation just off? I would pronounce both parts of both examples the same.

[mhandley]

That's mostly an British English vs American English distinction:

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/pronunciation/english/lieut...

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/pronunciation/english/straw...

[wkat4242]

Strawberry is often pronounced as Strawbry. Sou the 'e' becomes silent. And Lieutenant as Lutenant (or leftenant in Britain)

[int_19h]

French can be pretty bad. Not as bad as English for reading, but it's much worse for writing because there are so many spelling options for the same thing.

[mmarq]

You are right, but you can read French words without knowing the language, because a written word has a unique correct pronunciation.

[Jolter]

You have the right idea on “ou” but your other examples don’t make sense.