Re-spe·lling· (I·rre·gu·lar· le·tters· are co·lor-co·ded· in gold and the word is re-spelt·):
The Myth - En·glish· is a hard lan·guage· to learn be·cause· it is an i·rre·gu·lar· lan·guage·:
The En·glish· lan·gua·ge’s· pro·nun·ci·a·tion· and spe·lling· rules are far more re·gu·lar· than most peo·ple· re·a·lise·. On·ly· a ve·ry· small per·cen·tage· of En·glish· words con·tain· i·rre·gu·la·ri·ties·, but be·cause· ma·ny· of these words are ve·ry· co·mmon· words, we get the mi·sta·ken· im·pre·ssion· that most words con·tain· i·rre·gu·la·ri·ties·. Most tea·chers· are not e·ven· a·ware· of all the rules of En·glish· and so they per·pe·tu·ate· the myth, from on ge·ne·ra·tion· to the next, that the lan·guage· is not ve·ry· re·gu·lar·.
The re·gu·lar· rules of En·glish·:
There are a·ppro·xi·mate·ly· 100 rules in the al·pha·be·tic· code of En·glish·. These rules form the code which co·nnects· the 26 le·tters· in the En·glish· al·pha·bet· with the 44 sounds used in the En·glish· lan·guage·. These rules are li·sted· in the link to In·for·ma·tion· in the Co·lor· Codes me·nu· a·bove·. Click here to go there: Co·lor· Codes In·for·ma·tion·
There are a small num·ber· of i·rre·gu·lar· words in En·glish·:
Un·for·tu·nate·ly·, ma·ny· of the pho·ne·tic·/ spe·lling· rules are not taught in schools. As a re·sult·, most peo·ple· have the mi·sta·ken· be·lief· that En·glish· is a high·ly· i·rre·gu·lar· lan·guage·. In fact, o·ver· 95% of the words in the dic·tio·na·ry· fo·llow· the 100 rules. Of the 5% which break the rules, near·ly· all of them break the rules in on·ly· one place. Con·se·quent·ly·, most of the le·tters· in words which con·tain· an i·rre·gu·la·ri·ty· ac·tu·a·lly· fo·llow· the rules. (E.g. in the word ‘bought’ the ‘b’ re·pre·sents· the /b/ sound, the ‘gh’ is si·lent·, and the ‘t’ re·pre·sents· the /t/ sound; on·ly· the ‘ou’ which re·pre·sents· the /or/ sound is i·rre·gu·lar·.)
Ac·ce·ssing· re-spe·lling·:
Be·tter· Thana Book En·hanced· Text © o·ver·comes· the pro·blem· of a word con·tai·ning· an i·rre·gu·lar· spe·lling· by re-spe·lling· that word u·sing· the 100 re·gu·lar· rules (e.g. ‘one’ would be re·spelt· ‘wun ’). You can see the re-spe·lling· by cli·cking· on the gold le·tters· wi·thin· the i·rre·gu·lar· word.