# Sounds or symbols



## effeundici

Hi all,

I've just received an e-mail from my American boss and I've noticed, once again, that he made some spelling mistakes which I would never ever could imagine to make (myself). This happens often, and many other natives do it too.

I've noticed that these mistakes are quite always pronunciation-driven.

Some examples:

proc*ee*dure for procedure
undstood for understood
tale for tail

The amazing conclusion I've come to, is that Italian natives with good knowledge of English make fewer spelling mistakes than English native speakers with a low (middle?) level of education in humanistic subjects (my boss is an engineer!).

The question is: are there any studies which confirm that English native speakers approach their language mainly by using sounds, whereas Italians (or other peoples) approach their language mainly by using symbols and letters?

Or....Is it only a matter of natives-non natives? That is, non natives build up their knowledge of a foreign language upon letters and symbols because foreign sounds are very difficult and unintelligible for them.

Thanks for your answers.

P.S. Italian natives don't make driven-pronunciation spelling mistakes because Italian is a phonetical language


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## Frank78

The "problem" is that there are a lot of English words which sound the same but spelled differently (they´re, their, there). When you type fast and don´t "think" such mistakes appear. Even I make them when chatting but after rereading what I´ve typed I immediatly recognize it.
I doubt that it´s a matter of native vs. non-native. Your fingers are simply faster than your brain. 

In German there are almost no words which are spelled differently but prounced the same way. But there are other traps


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## effeundici

Frank78 said:


> The "problem" is that there are a lot of English words which sound the same but spelled differently (they´re, their, there). When you type fast and don´t "think" such mistakes appear. Even I make them when chatting but after rereading what I´ve typed I immediatly recognize it.
> I doubt that it´s a matter of native vs. non-native. Your fingers are simply faster than your brain.
> 
> In German there are almost no words which are spelled differently but prounced the same way. But there are other traps


 
But I, as an Italian native, never make such mistakes because my fingers and my brain remember the words by their spelling and not by their sound!


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## Frank78

effeundici said:


> But I, as an Italian native, never make such mistakes because my fingers and my brain remember the words by their spelling and not by their sound!



So it differs from non-native to non-native. It surely depends how you have learnt English.


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## mirx

I am there with Frank, I am not a native either but after rereading my writing I am usually appalled by the number of mistakes I make.  Male for mail, too instead of two or to, no instead of know, and many many more.


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## elmg

I think the same than Frank... My english isn't very good, so maybe I'm not a good example. But, for instance, I always write "an' before a word like 'school' just because it sounds like 'eschool' to my 'spanish' ears. So, I must to congrate to effeundici for such a good memory.

Sorry for my english, you can see now that I have also worst mistakes than little spelling mistakes. 

Regars.


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## pickarooney

I notice this all the time in native French speakers' writing - homophones are interchanged all the time and many words are spelled phonetically. 

Non-native speakers would rarely make the same kinds of errors (they'd make other kinds of errors, certainly).


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## Paulfromitaly

If I may 


effeundici said:


> P.S. Italian natives *who speak and pronounce Italian correctly* don't make driven-pronunciation spelling mistakes because Italian is a phonetical language


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## MOMO2

effeundici said:


> Hi all,
> 
> ...
> 
> 
> 
> P.S. Italian natives don't make driven-pronunciation spelling mistakes because Italian is a phonetical language


 
I beg your pardon 

I was luckier than you then! I've seen 
cross -------------------tick
Forza L'azio------------ *Forza Lazio*
all'ora ------------------*allora*
e nigmistica ------------*enigmistica*
Itagliano ---------------*italiano*
Stefagna ---------------*Stefania*
anno--------------------*hanno*
pò----------------------*po'*
lì------------------------*li* (Roma lì 24 novembre 2009 )
se----------------------*sé*

and a very trendy one:  out out intead of latin *aut aut* (frequtly used in Italian)

And many many more will come to my mind later ...

Momo


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## effeundici

MOMO2 said:


> I beg your pardon
> 
> I was luckier than you then! I've seen
> cross -------------------tick
> Forza L'azio------------ Forza Lazio
> all'ora ------------------allora
> e nigmistica ------------enigmistica
> Itagliano ---------------italiano
> Stefagna ---------------Stefania
> anno--------------------hanno
> pò----------------------po'
> lì------------------------li (Roma lì 24 novembre 2009 )
> se----------------------sé
> 
> And many many more will come to my mind later ...
> 
> Momo


 
In my opinion you did not understand what I was trying to say. I was talking about mistakes made by engineers, employees and so on; you are talking about mistakes made by completely uneducated people (except _a/ha _which actually is quite common).


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## MOMO2

effeundici said:


> In my opinion you did not understand what I was trying to say. I was talking about mistakes made by engineers, employees and so on; you are talking about mistakes made by completely uneducated people (except _a/ha _which actually is quite common).


 
_*This is you ...*_



effeundici said:


> Hi all,
> ...
> 
> P.S. Italian natives don't make driven-pronunciation spelling mistakes because Italian is a phonetical language


 
I am sorry I did not understand you did not mean all Italians.


*What a pity! I just lost a long message I had been typing since your last answer.*
*Anyway here's a resumé of it:*

*You can easily find the " li " thing in documents or certificates (employees)*

*For the out out job just type "out out del governo a..." and you'll find many an article. (journalists)*

*I write a short list of words that are not (often) pronounced correctly *
*pignòro for pìgnoro*
*io mi sbèllico for io mi sbellìco*
*io abrògo for io àbrogo*
*àmaca for amàca*
*autodròmo for autòdromo*
*bàule for baùle*
*violo for vìolo *
*bolscèvico for bolscevìco*
*sàlubre for salùbre*
*io centèllino for io centellìno*
*cosmopòlita for cosmopolìta*
*io dévio for io devìo*
*èdile for edìle (engineers also)*
*rùbrica for rubrìca ...*

*I apologize as I am going out of topic. I am not going to send any further post about some Italians' misspelling and mispronouncing. My word.*
*Should we open a thread on this point?*

*Momo[/QUOTE]*


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## effeundici

MOMO2 said:


> _*This is you ...*_
> 
> 
> 
> I am sorry I did not understand you did not mean all Italians.
> 
> 
> *What a pity! I just lost a long message I had been typing since your last answer.*
> *Anyway here's a resumé of it:*
> 
> *You can easily find the " li " thing in documents or certificates (employees)*
> 
> *For the out out job just type "out out del governo a..." and you'll find many an article. (journalists)*
> 
> *I write a short list of words that are not (often) pronounced correctly *
> *pignòro for pìgnoro*
> *io mi sbèllico for io mi sbellìco*
> *io abrògo for io àbrogo*
> *àmaca for amàca*
> *autodròmo for autòdromo*
> *bàule for baùle*
> *violo for vìolo *
> *bolscèvico for bolscevìco*
> *sàlubre for salùbre*
> *io centèllino for io centellìno*
> *cosmopòlita for cosmopolìta*
> *io dévio for io devìo*
> *èdile for edìle (engineers also)*
> *rùbrica for rubrìca ...*
> 
> *I apologize as I am going out of topic. I am not going to send any further post about some Italians' misspelling and mispronouncing. My word.*
> *Should we open a thread on this point?*
> 
> *Momo*


[/QUOTE]

Momo, you are publishing a list of pronunciation mistakes whereas my thread talked about spelling mistakes. In my opinion the only example which fits very well is _out out / aut aut._

All the others, in my opinion, are off topic and this discussion is concealing, I'm afraid, the topic I was interested in.

Also, I find the someone who writes *proceedure *for *procedure *because (s)he hears a long *i: *is much more interesting than someone who writes _*li* _for *lì *where the difference is only a convention

Bye


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## clevermizo

I make tons of typos in English. It is in fact the problem of my brain thinking faster than my fingers are typing. I usually, however, catch them fast enough to correct them when they occur. I would say that the lack of English phonetic/orthographic concordance would contribute to the rate of typographical errors - but really I think errors are bound to happen when you type quickly (80-90+ WPM). For example, just now I typed "htink" instead of "think" - that has nothing to down with how well "think" corresponds to how "think" sounds.



effeundici said:


> Some examples:
> 
> proc*ee*dure for procedure
> undstood for understood
> tale for tail



Both proceedure and undstood look bizarre to me. If they are pronunciation-driven, well, I understand proceedure, but understood always has three syllables to me. Tale for tail is a common typo, but I try to catch those mistakes as fast as I can.
The amazing conclusion I've come to, is that Italian natives with good knowledge of English make fewer spelling mistakes than English native speakers with a low (middle?) level of education in humanistic subjects (my boss is an engineer!).



> Or....Is it only a matter of natives-non natives? That is, non natives build up their knowledge of a foreign language upon letters and symbols because foreign sounds are very difficult and unintelligible for them.



I think that the way non-natives approach learning a language is fundamentally different, so this affects the sorts of unconscious typographical errors one makes.  To me, when I think of an English word, I think of the entire word, fully spelled and I don't break it up into sound-chunks. Nevertheless, I'm sure I've made male/mail, tale/tail, your/you're, too/to mistakes which means there is some pronunciation component. It probably has to do with which neural connections are older. When I read, I don't ever sound out words and I don't really think that many English-speakers do. There was a movement in the US called "Hooked-on-Phonics" in primary education that attempted to teach spelling by phonetic chunks and sounding-out words. I don't think it was found to be effective. 

Now I don't know of any studies off-hand, but if you search on Google Scholar, there's a lot in the literature about spelling errors in English specifically and in other languages. Also there seem to be quite a number of papers on spelling errors as made by non-natives, as well as the phonological component of spelling mistakes.


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## Fer BA

Effeundici,

I think that _proceedure _is just a typo, the /e/ is very short (and I'm with a company that makes a religion out of procedures, so it's an every day word...).

Now, _undstood_...I've found several entries on the net when googling it, just of curiosity (i.e. I HATE maths. Never undstood and still don't. ). It looks much more common.

Another note: never take for granted that in the States having or not a degree (engineer in this case) necessarily drives this type of things...where is your boss from? how used to texting is he? And remember the tendecy to write it as it is pronounced (nite, lite, chix, flix, etc.)

Anyway, I'd like to hear more from native speakers...writers...


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## danielfranco

Also, there's the fact that it doesn't matter how many degrees you have, if you can't spell correctly, you can't. That's what it comes down to, in the end. Just because I make a living as a medical interpreter I have to practice my spelling day in and day out. But if I were instead, say, a submarine designer, most probably I would let my secretary deal with spelling and spend my efforts figuring out how to keep the water on the outside of the boat, you know?

Besides, most speakers of whatever-as-a-second-language started learning the language formally, by being taught all the rules _from the beginning_. Instead, native speakers learnt (or learned, if it causes anybody a rash seeing it spelt thusly… ah, crud, sorry, I meant "spelled") to speak first, and then learnt to write many years later.

Now, Spanish is also a phonetic language, but it has a lot of rules about spelling, and a lot of native people make a lot of mistakes when spelling that non-natives might not make.

Anyway, I apologize for generalising without factual evidence…


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## Alxmrphi

There is a distinction to be made about L1 and L2 here.
First languages are learnt through speech and the spelling rules come letter, the way the language is wired in is primarily at a spoken level.

Second languages, like English taught at school in many countries where there is a larger tendency to learn from written material is important as the written form of the language is usually for most people the primary source of learning and spelling and the association with "_meaning to word_" is stronger than "_meaning to sound_" than it is for natives.

I've seen lectures on phonetics and this has come up a few times, like the topic of International English, the common mistakes in pronunciation because the words are learnt from a written form first, and reproduced as such, whereas for native English speakers when we're learning our language as children, it is mainly through speech (then as we grow a larger dependency on writing).

It's because of this closer relationship between written forms and meanings that a lot of speakers of International English (speakers of English as a second/third language etc) have less problems than natives (who haven't been educated in _English_ to a high level) and they can be doctors / engineers, very successful people, but some people just can't get the hang of spelling..

So the 'sound' connection is stronger for us so when writing a form, it goes from how it is pronounced through the brain's "spelling module" and if the spelling isn't already known, it's based on the sounds and given English's low correlation to sounds and spelling of words it can quite often lead to spelling mistakes. Typical example is, _schwa_ is by miles our most common vowel sound, but we don't have a letter for it in English, so many other letters are used to express it, these are rendered in speech by most IE speakers, and this connection usually helps a lot when spelling the word (because English becomes more phonetic then) so they can learn a word and say it in a more phonetic sense, then when spelling needs arise they're a lot closer (mentally) to the correct form whereas us natives are not.


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## ewhite

> Also, there's the fact that it doesn't matter how many degrees you have, if you can't spell correctly, you can't. That's what it comes down to, in the end.



I couldn't agree more. In English, as far as my experience as both an elementary school teacher and at other times a proofreader tells me, you can either spell, or you can't. Is there another language in which spelling is a separate subject in elementary school, and where the teaching of spelling consists of memorization of lists and appllication a handful of arcane rules?


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## clevermizo

ewhite said:


> I couldn't agree more. In English, as far as my experience as both an elementary school teacher and at other times a proofreader tells me, you can either spell, or you can't. Is there another language in which spelling is a separate subject in elementary school, and where the teaching of spelling consists of memorization of lists and appllication a handful of arcane rules?



I assume any language with historical rather than phonetic spelling. Perhaps Danish? Spelling wasn't a separate subject in my primary education, but it was part of a class called "Reading". "Reading" class persisted from about 1st/2nd grade through 8th grade for me.

I'm curious how people with certain learning disabilities or special disorders that make English spelling perhaps a little cruel for them - how they fare with a language with more phonetically-based spelling like Spanish.


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## HKK

clevermizo said:


> I'm curious how people with certain learning disabilities or special disorders that make English spelling perhaps a little cruel for them - how they fare with a language with more phonetically-based spelling like Spanish.



Wikipedia has an interesting article about that.


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## WadiH

clevermizo said:


> I assume any language with historical rather than phonetic spelling. Perhaps Danish? Spelling wasn't a separate subject in my primary education



People tend to consider Arabic writing to be largely phonetic, but we had a separate spelling class called إملاء ("dictation").  There wasn't much to teach, however, except the rules for the _hamza_, the two forms of _aleph_ (ا and ى), and the ة versus ه.


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## Sepia

effeundici said:


> But I, as an Italian native, never make such mistakes because my fingers and my brain remember the words by their spelling and not by their sound!


 
But you can tell a lot of English spelling from the sound of it - you just need to cathegorize. There is often different spellings to the same sound and vice versa. 

But it is a fact that has been pointed out within many non-anglophone cultures over the  decades: Good students very often spell a lot better than the average American. 

Range Cloyd, a well known Hamburg based translator and teacher (Staatliche Fremdsprachenschule), even went as far as claiming that Germans were often better at explaining English grammar, and that native English speakers often wrote better translations from English to German than vice versa.


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## Leo57

Alxmrphi said:


> First languages are learnt through speech and the spelling rules come letter, (_do you mean_ later? ) the way the language is wired in is primarily at a spoken level.



Hello everybody! (Hi Alxmrphi!)
What a fascinating discussion!  I believe, like others on here, that some people are good at spelling and some are not.   As I'm good at spelling in English, I'm also good at spelling in Italian, even though my level of Italian is fairly basic.  (The grammar might be found wanting though!)

You may find this  "Ode to a spell checker" amusing!
humor/spell.html

Bye 
Leo


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## Grop

pickarooney said:


> I notice this all the time in native French speakers' writing - homophones are interchanged all the time and many words are spelled phonetically.



Also in French many mistakes are due to grammar: verbs left unconjugated, adjectives that don't agree with their noun, etc.

(As a side note, in an informal context we may spell things wrong just for fun - just like English speakers may do when not writing to a furiner).


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## effeundici

Grop said:


> Also in French many mistakes are due to grammar: verbs left unconjugated, adjectives that don't agree with their noun, etc.
> 
> (As a side note, in an informal context we may spell things wrong just for fun - just like English speakers may do when not writing to a *furiner*).


 

?? _Foreigner??_


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## Grop

Grop said:


> spell things wrong just for fun





effeundici said:


> ?? _Foreigner??_



Toutafey Tout à fait


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## Rallino

You may find this site interesting, it covers both the spelling mistakes and the grammatical mistakes in English (that mainly Americans make) 
http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html


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