Crossposted from https://sopuli.xyz/post/25634723
I wonder how native English speakers do it, but here’s how I approach this problem.
My trick involves using a consistent spelling system for encoding a random letter sequence into a sound which I can memorize. When writing, you just pull those auditory memories, decode the sounds back to the original alphabet salad, and you’re done! Needlessly complicated, but that’s a common theme in English anyway, so it should fit right in.
To make this method work, you need a consistent spelling system, so you could make one up or modify one previously invented for another language. Basically anything more consistent than English should do, so it’s a pretty low bar to clear.
Here are some example words to test this idea with:
- carburetor
- carburettor
- carburetter
Pronounce those letter sequences using that alternate spelling system. It won’t sound like English, but it’s consistent and that’s all we care about at this stage. The end of each word could sound like this:
- [retor]
- [retːor]
- [reter]
In my system, each letter corresponds to a specific sound like e=[e], a=[ɑ] etc. I’ve been thinking of including the Italian c=[tʃ], but you could use other languages too. Feel free to mix and match, as long as you make it consistent.
The idea is that it’s easier to memorize sounds rather than whimsical letter sequences. Once you have those funny sounds in your head, it’s easy to use that same consistent spelling system to convert the sound back to letters.
Once you know that trick, it suddenly becomes a lot easier to spell common words like “island”, “salmon”, “subtle”, or “wednesday. For example “cache” could be stored as [tʃatʃe] in my head. Still haven’t settled on a good way to store the letter c, so I’m open to suggestions.
If you’re mapping a specific mouth sound to a specific character, why not use the IPA? That’s exactly what it is designed to do.
That way you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
For a better introduction to the IPA, check this video.
Yea, that’s what I immediately thought of - there’s already a tool for this.
IPA can’t help with spelling because it aims to record sounds in character format.
My idea is to convert a hard to memorize character strings into an easy to memorize sounds. The human brain just works like that for some reason. Anyway, these two concepts are related, but distinct. I can totally see where this question is coming from.
When writing, you don’t need to remember the letters. You just recall the absurd sound and convert it back to a sequence of seemingly unrelated characters we call “correct spelling”.
Ah I now get what you’re trying to do, I think?
Having some kind of sonic(?) shorthand for specific spellings right?
It’s kind of like trying to solve the Gothi problem, maybe?
Needlessly complicated, but that’s a common theme in English anyway, so it should fit right in.
And I love this line 😂
Yeah, I think sonic shorthand sounds good. Or maybe auditory? It even helps me remember absurd spellings like gothi.
The actual pronunciation and correct spelling may have some convoluted mechanism connecting the two, but I don’t need to worry about layers of history, a list of exceptions, language of origin and other things. I just memorize a particular sound and generate the correct spelling based on that. I guess that’s a shorthand of sorts. Not the shortest route really, but doing it properly is way beyond my memorization skills.
As long as it helps you, right?
Good luck!
I’m a native (American) English speaker and i still spell words wrong all the time, as do most people i know. Part of that is that i don’t really care if a computer’s spellchecker says i should use the French “-ible” instead of the more English “-able”, and part of it is that i know English spelling can’t get any better if we never let it evolve and we try to keep it totally static by making any spelling that doesn’t agree with Merriam and Webster a point of shame.
Oh, I totally agree. US english has diverged from UK english by making certain things more sensible, but there’s still a long way to go.
I think I’ve seen some organization try to change the spelling of health to helth. Maybe it was an Australian clinic or something. Can’t remember. Anyway, I totally agree with that sort of spelling reform. Just make the spelling closer the pronunciation and get rid of all the random nonsense.
Unlike many other languages, English doesn’t have a central authority thay could even propose changes, let alone dictate them. Spelling reforms have been attempted many times before, but it doesn’t look like we’re getting anywhere.
English is also incredibly widespread, which is beginning to turn into a burden at this point. If you want to change something, your new spelling won’t be compatible with the rest of the world. If you make the spelling match the pronunciation, you need to choose one dialect. Which one though? Oh, I’m sure that decision won’t be controversial in the slightest and everyone will be totally ok with the outcome.
I use something similar (albeit simpler) with my native language, so I wouldn’t be surprised if your system worked for native English speakers.
I recommend focusing on problem sequences, though. It’s tempting (and fun) to make a whole new system, but you’ll typically see yourself only misspelling a handful of them.
That’s pretty cool. Tell me more about your system. Is it fully consistent, or only partially?
It’s only partial, for things that I could reasonably misspell while writing Portuguese:
spelling actual pronunciation mental “pronunciation” example ⟨ç⟩; ⟨c⟩ before ⟨e i⟩ [s] [ts] ⟨caçar⟩ to hunt [kɐ’saɾ]→[kɐ’tsaɾ] ⟨ss⟩; non-intervocalic ⟨s⟩ [s] [sː] ⟨cassar⟩ to revoke [kɐ’saɾ]→[kɐ’sːaɾ] ⟨z⟩ [z] [dz] ⟨cozer⟩ to cook [ko’zeɾ]→[ko’dzeɾ] intervocalic ⟨s⟩ [z] [zː] ⟨coser⟩ to sew [ko’zeɾ]→[ko’zːeɾ] ⟨ch⟩ [ʃ] [ç] ⟨chá⟩ tea [ʃa]→[ça] ⟨x⟩ [ʃ], [ks], [s], [z] [ks] ⟨xá⟩ shah [ʃa]→[ksa] ⟨g⟩ before ⟨e i⟩ [ʒ] [dʒ] ⟨viagem⟩ travel, noun [vi’aʒẽ]→[vi’adʒẽ] ⟨j⟩ [ʒ] [ʒː] ⟨viajem⟩ travel, verb [vi’aʒẽ]→[vi’aʒːẽ] ⟨h⟩ Ø [h] ⟨há⟩ there is [a]→[ha] coda ⟨l⟩ [ʊ̯] [ɫ] ⟨mal⟩ evil, noun [maʊ̯]→[maɫ] coda ⟨u⟩ [ʊ̯] [ʔu] ⟨mau⟩ bad, adj. [maʊ̯]→[maʔu] I picked those specific readings because they’re easy enough to pronounce but they wouldn’t otherwise pop up in my dialect of Portuguese. A good chunk of them are actually archaisms, like ⟨c z⟩ used to actually sound like [ts dz] some 700 years ago or so.
Just from that table alone, I can tell that there are many “collisions” (to borrow a cryptography term) where single letter can map to multiple sounds or vice versa. As long as the rules are clear, you don’t necessarily even need spelling bees.
Yup, the standard spelling has a fair bit of collisions. With my system focusing on the multiple spelling → same sound ones, and leaving the rest untouched. It also doesn’t solve positional rules (like ⟨ss⟩ vs. single ⟨s⟩ for /s/), as those are predictable.
Predictability is key. As long as thouse double letters don’t misbehave, this system should work just fine.
Nneedlessly complicated" is rather judgemental. This could be said of pretty much any PIE language, as they all come from the same route, but traveled through different paths to get to today. Try counting in French for example - there’s a reason Lincoln said “four score is and twenty years ago” - French. (I’d say “needlessly complicated” applies to any language today, *from our perspective).
Modern English is (largely) a result of the heavy influence of French on Old/Middle English courtesy of the Norman invasion in 1066 (I think it was Old English at the time, but I don’t fully recall). There are other influences, but that one is massive.
The key to determining spelling is understanding the sound of the word, and then using IPA.
By the way, “carburettor” is a valid spelling, and is the word Brits use. To that end, I recommend learning British English first, it has some consistencies that were eliminated by Webster. Granted Webster did simplify some things, and introduce some other consistencies, but I think from a learning perspective of “received English” may be easier.
If you really want to understand why English is the way it is, check out the podcast “The History of English” By Kevin Stroud, and the podcasts “Let’s Master English” and “Business English”.
You just reminded me of a brilliant Numberphile video about french numerals. This stuff is truly mind blowing!
And yes, you’re right. The layers of history can be seen in the disconnect between spelling and pronunciation. The Great Vowel Shift is just the tip of the iceberg.
