Steve Simmons <scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us> writes: > On Wed, Dec 15, 2004 at 01:51:21PM -0600, David Dyer-Bennet wrote: > >> [English is] widely reported to be among the hardest of the alphabetic >> languages (let's not get into the difficulty of becoming literate in >> chinese!), actually. And I don't believe "spelling" is a standard >> school subject much of anywhere else. > > I can believe that. When I was studying Russian and found out that > things are spelled like they're pronounced and pronounced like they're > spell, it was heavenly. When I took Russian in college, we did all the funny sounds and the funny writing (both typeset and hand-written) the first week. And it was never much of a problem after that. German was even simpler -- fewer strange sounds, fewer strange letters. -- David Dyer-Bennet, <mailto:dd-b at dd-b.net>, <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/> RKBA: <http://noguns-nomoney.com/> <http://www.dd-b.net/carry/> Pics: <http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/> <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/> Dragaera/Steven Brust: <http://dragaera.info/>