I was reminded of this the other day when I realized that my spelling in Portuguese is much better than my spelling in English. I also find Portuguese Phonetics much easier than English. I really don't know what part of my brain wasn't working in grade school, but it was such a nightmare for me.
In grade school, I had to attend special classes for a few hours a day because I had a little bit of dyslexia as well as I was having a big issue with phonetics. It was more ammunition for the kids who were already taunting me about my leg braces. I got a lot of snickers and heckles about having to leave class for a few hours to attend the "special" class. It was difficult and I hated being called out of class like that, but it was worth it. I ended up having to learn to read by the EVIL "sight words". I had to memorize what a word looked like in order to know what it was. I could not just "sound it out" as I was being told to do. Learning to read this way did complicate things for a while, when a word I had never seen would appear, I was lost. I guess my brain adjusted over the few years I was attending the class and both the dyslexia and the phonetic issues dissipated. I could phonetically sound things out, but sight words were the start I needed.
So, 20 years later and I am speaking my 3rd language and I am starting to realize that the phonetics of English language are much more difficult than both Spanish and Portuguese. Portuguese doesn't have the massive list of rules for decoding the phonetics like English does. When I use phonetics in Portuguese, it makes sense! I think English Phonetics are complicated by the foreign language influences. We have adopted so many foreign words and changed the spellings to fit our own tongue that they become difficult to identify, pronounce and spell, we then have to create phonetic decoding rules to adjust. Phonetics in the English language work, but only to a certain extent. You step beyond the basic English words and things get very complicated and letter combination in one word can sound completely different in another word.
Portuguese is a difficult language to learn, but I can attest to it being phonetically easier than English... and that is about it.
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