On Thu, 12 Mar 2009 12:59:08 -0700, Walter Bright wrote:


> If you work with kids teaching them to read phonetically (rather than look-say), you'll discover that by and large, the phonetic rules work very well. They'll pronounce about 80% of the unfamiliar words reasonably correctly.

I wound the bandage around the wound.

Wind up the window to stop the wind coming in.

And of course there's "ghoti" ;-)

-- 
Derek Parnell
Melbourne, Australia
skype: derek.j.parnell

On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 06:57:12 +0100, Derek Parnell <derek@psych.ward> wrote:

> On Thu, 12 Mar 2009 12:59:08 -0700, Walter Bright wrote:
>
>
>> If you work with kids teaching them to read phonetically (rather than
>> look-say), you'll discover that by and large, the phonetic rules work
>> very well. They'll pronounce about 80% of the unfamiliar words
>> reasonably correctly.
>
> I wound the bandage around the wound.
>
> Wind up the window to stop the wind coming in.
>
> And of course there's "ghoti" ;-)

Ghoti is nothing. In norwegian, we write 'hund' and pronounce it 'bikkje'. :p

Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> "Walter Bright" <newshound1@digitalmars.com> wrote in message news:gpc2ik$2t80$1@digitalmars.com...
>> Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>>> That's one thing that's kind of nice about Japanese. Native words and loanwords are written in different alphabets (sort of like uppercase vs lowercase), so unlike English, you generally know if a word is a properly-pronounced native word or a potentially-differently-pronounced loanword. (Not that this is necessarily the original reason for the separate native/foreign alphabets, but it's at least a nice benefit.)
>> I don't see having 3 alphabets as having some sort of compelling advantage that remotely compares with the cost of learning 3 alphabets and 3 spellings for everything.
> 
> Native Japanese words never use the Katakana alphabet, and loanwords never use the Hiragana alphabet (those are the two phonetic alphabets).

There are situations in Japanese where you use katakana natively. Onomatopoeia, for instance, and company names.

I know that, when introducing someone's name in writing, an author will sometimes follow the kanji version of the name with a phonological representation of the name. Does this typically use hiragana, or would you use katakana for that as well?

Simen Kjaeraas wrote:
> On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 06:57:12 +0100, Derek Parnell <derek@psych.ward> wrote:
> 
>> On Thu, 12 Mar 2009 12:59:08 -0700, Walter Bright wrote:
>>
>>
>>> If you work with kids teaching them to read phonetically (rather than look-say), you'll discover that by and large, the phonetic rules work very well. They'll pronounce about 80% of the unfamiliar words reasonably correctly.
>>
>> I wound the bandage around the wound.
>>
>> Wind up the window to stop the wind coming in.
>>
>> And of course there's "ghoti" ;-)
> 
> Ghoti is nothing. In norwegian, we write 'hund' and pronounce it 'bikkje'. :p

Perhaps, but you guys make the best sandwich cheese in the world. Seriously.  I <3 jarlsberg.  Plus it's fun to say.

"Yullsburg, yullsburg.  But in Latin, 'jarlsberg' begins with an 'i'..."

:D

  -- Daniel

Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> "Walter Bright" <newshound1@digitalmars.com> wrote in message news:gpbpib$2eek$1@digitalmars.com...
>> Ary Borenszweig wrote:
>>> What do you mean with pseudo-phonetic?
>>>
>>> How do you pronounce the first letter of "I"? And the first letter of "Incredible"? That doesn't seem to have any logic! :-P
> 
> Yea, that's exactly what I mean. English pretends to be phonetic but really isn't (at least not anymore). But I never truly saw just how non-phonetic it was until I learned the Japanese -kana alphabets. Those alphabets really make English's claim of being phonetic look ridiculous.

To be fair, English stems from Germanic, and pronunciation has changed tremendously over the years.  Chaucer is nearly incomprehensible to most people, and it's just in Middle English.