Phonetics are like rules of how to sound out words from their component letter combinations. Of course sometimes the same combinations may make two sounds (low, cow). Sometimes different combinations make the same sound (two, too, to). When a language borrows from multiple cultures, it ends up with words based on completely different phonetics, classroom exceptions that cause confusion.
1) Find a letter combination that makes a lot of different sounds in different english words. What combination can you think of that makes the most? Give example words to back up your case. Can you think of one that makes at least SIX different sounds?
2) The biggest irony is that the word PHonetic doesn't follow the typical phonetics for the sounds of p and h. It's the elePHant in the room . . . that the very word for the rules is so haPHazard.
5 comments:
to get you started
"CH" has at least two sounds
machine
chew
"TH" has at least two sounds
thin
these
OUGH
tough through thorough dough
or simply OU
(adding to the above...) out toupee
EE i guess as well
free fiancee
IO
nation ion Io
SCH
school/schedule, and there's probably a word i can't think up that uses the S and CH (chew) ...
this puzzle is one reason i really do like italian and japanese...
you found my 6 sound combo
. . OUGH
and gave 3 great examples:
tough, sounds like cuff
through, like too
thorough & dough, like low
and there's also these 3:
cough, like off
bough, like ow
as in Rock-a-bye-Baby song
ought, as in awe
I was struggling to learn a little french and complained to some french friends about their silent letters. One of them pointed out how inconsistent our english phonetics are.
I don't know anything about japanese sounds, but if I once thought that their writing was all based on pictures for every word, and not on alphabets adn phonetics. Is that right? I guess the trade-off is that you have to learn much more than 20-30symbols. Makes you wonder who thought of these schemes back in history.
japanese uses kanji (single symbols, stolen from chinese, to represent whole words or thoughts) and there are some 54,000 of them... 10,000 or so commonly used...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji#Total_number_of_kanji_characters
japanese also uses Katakana and Hiragana, which are phonetic "alphabets" (wikipedia links can be found at the top of the kanji page listed above)
and finally, japanese uses romanji, which is latin letters, to spell out words primarily for business purposes (SONY, Nintendo, Toyota, etc)
are they distinct and used separately? NO! they're used interchangably in sentences!!
japanese uses kanji (single symbols, stolen from chinese, to represent whole words or thoughts) and there are some 54,000 of them... 10,000 or so commonly used...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji#Total_number_of_kanji_characters
japanese also uses Katakana and Hiragana, which are phonetic "alphabets" (wikipedia links can be found at the top of the kanji page listed above)
and finally, japanese uses romanji, which is latin letters, to spell out words primarily for business purposes (SONY, Nintendo, Toyota, etc)
are they distinct and used separately? NO! they're used interchangably in sentences!!
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