"Ghoti" = "Fish" Josef Essberger Some languages are "phonetic". That means that you can look at a word and know how to say it. English is not phonetic. You cannot always look at an English word and know how to say it. You cannot always hear an English word and know how to spell it. George Bernard Shaw (GBS) was a famous Irish writer. He wanted to reform English spelling so that it was more logical. He asked the following question as an example: How do we pronounce the word "ghoti؟ His answer was "fish". How can "ghoti" and "fish" sound the same? GBS explained it like this: the gh = f as in rouGH the o = i as in wOmen the ti = sh as in naTIon
Of course, this was a joke. The word "ghoti" is not even a real word. But it showed the inconsistency of English spelling. It is very important to understand that English spelling and English pronunciation are not always the same. Same spelling - different soundDo not place too much importance on the spelling of a word. The more important thing in understanding English is the sound. Here are five words that end in "ough". In each word, the "ough" has a different pronunciation: bough rhymes with cow cough rhymes with off rough rhymes with puff though rhymes with Jo through rhymes with too
Many words have exactly the same spelling but are pronounced differently when the meaning is different. These words are called "homographs". Here are some examples: bow (noun: front of ship) rhymes with cow bow (noun: fancy knot) rhymes with go
lead (verb: to guide) rhymes with feed lead (noun: metal) rhymes with fed
wind (noun: airflow) rhymes with pinned wind (verb: to turn) rhymes with find
Different spelling - same soundMany words have different spellings but are pronounced exactly the same. These words are called "homophones". Here are some examples: sea, see for, four hear, here one, won knight, night him, hymn to, too, two
What can we learn from all this? We can learn that the sound of a word is more important than the spelling. Of course, it is good to spell correctly. But to help you understand spoken English and many rules of English, you should think first about the sound of the words. Do not worry too much at first about the spelling. Take, for example, the rule about pronouncing the past simple "-ed" ending of regular verbs. You have probably learned that when a verb ends in "d" or "t", we add "-ed" and pronounce it /Id/ as an extra syllable. So why do we have: ??? "Divide" does not end in "d". It ends in "e". But it does end in a /d/ sound. With this rule, it is the sound at the end of a word that matters, not the letter. You must think about the spoken word, not the written word. This is only one example of the importance of sounds in English. There are many more examples! |