# Languages with more ambiguity in pronunciation than English



## Jacobtm

As a native English speaker, and dabbler of other languages, I am always amazed how English has never developed a reliable system to know how to pronounce a word. 

Give a native English speaker a new word written, and unless it follows some familiar pattern, he has no idea how to pronounce it. The famous restaurant guidebook Zagat for instance. zih GAHT? ZAA git? zah GAHT? ZAH gaht? I have no idea...

All the other languages I know have much clearer rules for pronunciation, but there must be other languages out there like English which have writing systems that offer little clue as to pronunciation, right?


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## Dan2

There are really two separate issues here (both interesting).

First, it's difficult to know how to pronounce *English words*, given their English spelling (_h*ea*d, h*ea*t, and gr*ea*t_ have three different vowel sounds).  This contrasts greatly with Spanish, for ex.

Quite separate is the issue of how to pronounce *names* of non-English origin.  Even if English spelling were reformed to be fully regular (and the above words were spelled _hed_, _heet_, and _grate_), you *still* wouldn't know how to pronounce _Zagat_, because the "correct" pronunciation of this (non-English) name is determined by the people whose name it is (and who presumably would not change the spelling to conform with the rules, just as in Spanish the spellings _(Vicente) *Fox*_ and _(Bernardo) *O'Higgins*_ continue to be used).


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## Outsider

Jacobtm said:


> As a native English speaker, and dabbler of other languages, I am always amazed how English has never developed a reliable system to know how to pronounce a word.


It did develop one a long time ago, but then the pronunciation changed.  



Jacobtm said:


> All the other languages I know have much clearer rules for pronunciation, but there must be other languages out there like English which have writing systems that offer little clue as to pronunciation, right?


Irish and Scottish Gaelic are up there with English, and French isn't too far behind either. Danish might be another contender.


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## Dan2

Jacobtm said:


> ... but there must be other languages out there like English  which have writing systems that offer little clue as to pronunciation,  right?





Outsider said:


> Irish and Scottish Gaelic are up there with English, and French isn't too far behind either.


In defense of French : The language is enormously difficult in the direction, "given the pronunciation of a word, how is it spelled?" ([s̃ɑ̃] could be _sans, cent, cents, sens, sent, s'en_ ...). But in the direction Jacobtm refers to ("writing ... offers clue to ... pronunciation"), French isn't bad at all (it's largely predictable if you know the (bizarre) conventions).  There are some true exceptions (_j'ai *eu*_), but nothing like English.


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## Jacobtm

Dan2 said:


> Quite separate is the issue of how to pronounce *names* of non-English origin.  Even if English spelling were reformed to be fully regular (and the above words were spelled _hed_, _heet_, and _grate_), you *still* wouldn't know how to pronounce _Zagat_, because the "correct" pronunciation of this (non-English) name is determined by the people whose name it is (and who presumably would not change the spelling to conform with the rules, just as in Spanish the spellings _(Vicente) *Fox*_ and _(Bernardo) *O'Higgins*_ continue to be used).



Well in Spanish, for example, names are simply changed to fit into Spanish pronunciation. Some Spanish speakers with specific knowledge of a foreign language might prefer the native pronunciation, but Spanish's 5 vowel system really does a nice job of forcing foreign words to easily ''fit'' into Spanish. New Jersery is pronounced as (in Spanish orthography) ''Nu Yersi''. An elegantly simple solution to dealing with foreign names.


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## Lugubert

First, there is as mentioned the reverse problem. If you hear a _t_ in Thai, there are some 12 possible spellings. The _k_ isn't much better, etc. Same problem in Persian and Urdu at least for t, d and s.

Tibetan probably holds the record for obscure pronunciation, so I suppose there will be loads of ambiguity. That _blama_ 'lama' is pronounced, you guessed it, _lama_ isn't too problematic. But that the region _Dbus-gtsang _is something like _Ü-tsang_ is not immediately obvious.


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## LilianaB

Are Irish and Gaelic unpredictable as far as pronunciation is concerned?


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## merquiades

I think there are "reliable" systems for the languages I've been in contact with.  It's just easier and quicker to pick up some more than others.
If you have a week you can learn how to pronounce a word in Spanish or Italian. Portuguese is more difficult but predictable.  Once you learn when to reduce vowel sounds and learn the distribution of consonants, say when s is pronounce s, z or sh, it's quite predictable.
Now, French, takes some time.  It's chaotic but there is also a certain regularity to it. You have to learn what vowel combinations give what sounds, and in what circumstances, beginning, middle or end of word.  Also, when you see a word written you can predict what consonants will probably be silent.  Now if someone says a word I've never heard of before say somthing like /to/ I know instinctly it is probably "to, taux, tot, teau, tos" but there are always combinations much more likely than others. Learning this in a week is not possible though.
This exists in English too.  If I say a word to students like "til" they often say, spell that.  I repeat it and tell them to guess.  Some will then say, "t-e-a-l", I'll answer no, that's "teal" pronounced differently and means blueish-green.  Another will say "t-i-l-with final e", then I'll say that's another word too "tile" pronounced with long I. And so on and so forth. Then we make a list and distinguish the vowel sounds.  Til, teal, tile, tell, tail, tall.  There is a method to the chaos. The problem occurs when people can't make the differences (long, short, open, closed, full, reduces), don't hear the differences because they don't exist in their languages, or had bad teachers early on.  Native English speakers don't readily know this either. We never learn things why there are two p in apple and one p in ape... But, of course, in English none of this cannot be done in a week or even a month.
Russian is also quite complex, not just for the Cyrillic, but because it often obeys rules of aesthetics rather than logic.  Aspects like never this vowel after that consonant or never that consonant in that position, so switch this one for that one here or there.  Also never knowing which syllable is stressed with no clear cut rule to know... Other slavic languages too seem complicated.  And it's true I looked at Danish once, and it seemed incredible difficult to know what the pronunciation of a word would be.  D is th or t or silent,  G is y or g or ch or silent.  But I bet there is some scheme to learn it too.


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## merquiades

> ([s̃ɑ̃] could be _sans, cent, cents, sens, sent, s'en_ ...). But in the direction Jacobtm refers to ("writing ... offers clue to ... pronunciation"), French isn't bad at all (it's largely predictable if you know the (bizarre) conventions).  There are some true exceptions (_j'ai *eu*_.



It's true those one syllable homonyms in French can be problematic.
seau, sot, sceau, saut
si, scie, s'y, ci, cit, six
haut, os, oh!, eau, au, aux
sain, sein, seing, ceint, saint
quand, caen, qu'en, quant
etc.


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## terredepomme

I think it's related to adopting a super-linguistic writing system, such as the Latin alphabet which is used in many languages, compared to other languages which have their own writing systems.
In Latin alphabet languages, foreign loanwords are usually not transcribed according to their phonetic systems; it just conserves its original romanization. This is why there is no set rule in pronouncing the word.
The Korean language, however, does not have the notion of reading something differently from how it is written, even when it comes to foreign loanwords. There is a set rule of transliteration for every language. In the Korean Wikipedia, there are always debates on how to transliterate a foreigner's name into Korean. Other languages don't really seem to care as much about this issue.


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## koniecswiata

Actually (most) Slavic languages are "up there with Spanish" in conforming pretty much to their system, and not having too many exceptions.  Example, Polish sz =sh, cz =ch, vowels always have their same value.  True, rz can be confused with "z with a dot" as they have the same sound.  Then again, native Spanish speakers can have trouble knowing when to spell with an "h" or without one, when to use "v" or "b".
I think that English is probably on level with French for its "capriciousness".  As with French, there is a kind of system or method to the madness--it just takes quite a while to find it--and some people may never see it.
Also, Spanish is not so 100% systematic anymore.  You can find all these words on Spanish signage:  whisky, stress, weekend, performance, target, team, not to mention all the names:  Jocelyn, Katharine, Daniella, Jhonathann, Johnathan, Jonnatan, etc... None conform to regular spelling and are thus introducing an element of insecurity to the system--much as the "Zagat" example to English.  How as a Spanish speaker or learner, are you necessarily to know that "Daniella" and "Falabella" pronounce the double "l" like a single "l" and not like a "y"--only through habit--just as in English.


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## Christo Tamarin

koniecswiata said:


> Actually (most) Slavic languages are "up there with Spanish" in conforming pretty much to their system, and not having too many exceptions.


Yes, Polish and Czech are to be classified at the level of Spanish. At least, the pronunciation of a written text can be calculated.

However, Russian or Bulgarian are at the level of English. The pronunciation of a written text (at least the stress position) is unknown. Also, the spelling is uncertain when writing.

Turkish, Finnish, Albanian .. have the best writing system, as I could guess.


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## LilianaB

Re: unpredictability of Slavic languages in regard to pronunciation. Most Slavic languages are absolutely predictable as far as pronunciation is concerned once you have learned the rules. This is true about Polish and Russian, at least, and I believe, about many other Slavic languages as well, although I am not an expert on those.

How can Russian be compared to English with regards to pronunciation and the level of unpredictability of how to pronounce words?


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## Christo Tamarin

LilianaB said:


> How can Russian be compared to English with regards to pronunciation and the level of unpredictability of how to pronounce words?


First, Russian stress position is totally unpredictable. Bulgarian as well. No correct pronunciation is possible without the correct stress position in both Bulgarian and Russian. 

The case would be drastically improved if the stress position was systematically marked like Greek people do.

Actually, the cases are worse in both Russian and Bulgarian.

In Russian, there are many words as много, строго, etc. making the rule -ого is to be pronounced as -ово irrelevant.

In Bulgarian, there are many cases where A is to be pronounced as Ъ. Moreover, the value of Я could be either JA/ЙА or JЪ/ЙЪ.

Hence, for both languages, Bulgarian and Russian, а text-to-speech converter would be as complicated as it is for English (pronunciation database). Unlike Polish where it could be simpler (rule based).


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## LilianaB

I strongly disagree. In many languages stress is not marked, nevertheless, the meaning is understood, with a few exceptions, perhaps. Russian is a phonetic language. I mean it is read, more or less, the way it is written. Of course in the cyrillic.


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## Dan2

With respect to Russian:

I agree with Christo that if you don't know where stress falls in Russian words (it's marked only in dictionaries and learners' texts), terrible mispronunciations are possible (because as in English unstressed vowels are often pronounced with very different quality from stressed ones).  But WITH stress marking, Russian pronunciation is essentially fully predictable; this is simply not true for English.  I totally agree with Liliana that it makes no sense to compare Russian with English.  English is full of unpredictability (for ex., _head _vs _heat _vs _great _mentioned above); this is simply not seen in Russian.

And -ого is not a major issue.  It's ALWAYS pronounced -ово when it's the genitive ending; when it's not the genitive ending (for ex., много) it's pronounced as spelled (I can't recall whether there are any exceptions in the latter case).


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## LilianaB

Could you give me some examples, please. There are a few words in Russian the meaning of which is determined by the stress, but these are exceptions. This request should have been addressed to Christo, I am really sorry.


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## Christo Tamarin

LilianaB said:


> I strongly disagree. In many languages stress is not marked, nevertheless, the meaning is understood, with a few exceptions, perhaps. Russian is a phonetic language. I mean it is read, more or less, the way it is written. Of course in the cyrillic.


The meaning is always understood whatever the writing system is. The goal of the writing is to transfer the meaning over the time and space. Not to transfer the sounds.

There are writing systems (e.g. Chinese) which do not care about phonetics.

Semitic scripts do not mark vowels fully, e.g.

Russian script does not mark stress positions.

However, in all these cases, the meaning is clear, and people is happy with the writing system.

However, the topic was *how to reconstruct the phonems* (how to get the phonetic transcription) *based on written texts*. For Polish, e.g., this is easy: I can read slowly Polish although I do not know Polish; I would not understand the Polish text but a blind Pole would understand listening to me; moreover, I could perfectionized my Polish pronunciation without learning the Polish language itself. For Russian, English, Bulgarian, .. this is not possible unless you know the language. Foreigners learning Russian, English, Bulgarian, .. should also learn phonetic transcription of words (incl. the stress position).


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## Dan2

Liliana: In accordance with the topic of this thread, I was referring to pronunciation, not meaning.  Without stress marking, a learner will not know how to PRONOUNCE words correctly; their MEANING, on the other hand, is almost always obvious without stress marking.


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## LilianaB

Why wouldn't the same be possible for Russian? I do not see that much difference between the coding systems of Russian and Polish, except that Russian is written in the cyrillic.


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## berndf

LilianaB said:


> I strongly disagree. In many languages stress is not marked, nevertheless, the meaning is understood, with a few exceptions, perhaps. Russian is a phonetic language. I mean it is read, more or less, the way it is written. Of course in the cyrillic.


The topic of this thread is whether or not all phonologically relevant information is encoded in the spelling, i.e. that you know how to pronounce a word (in the context of what matters in the phonology of a language) even if you don't know it. Stress is phonologically relevant in Russian and, hence, failure to encode stress mean that you have some unpredictability in the spelling of Russian.


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## LilianaB

Yes, but it is marginal compared with the discrepancy between the English written system and the pronunciation.


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## sefaradi

Modern hebrew, due to the non pronunciation of certain typical semitic phonemes (guttural and emphatics) under the influence of european languages is a more ambiguous than the old hebrew. For exemple, the words "עור" (Skin) and "אור" (daylight) are both pronounced "or" in modern hebrew, the original pronunciations being "or" and "3or" (3:voiced pharyngeal approximant). Same phenomenon with "im" (if) and "3im" (with).


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## Marsario

> We never learn things why there are two p in apple and one p in ape...


Why are there two p in apple and one in ape?


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## merquiades

Marsario said:


> Why are there two p in apple and one in ape?



I know.  Don't worry about it. Most people don't learn that either, but it does make life easier for spelling to know double letters usually shorten vowels, double vowels make them long, and single letters followed by silent e make the first vowel full.  There are exceptions though as always. You can make an educated guess on the correct pronunciation.
Examples:  pill, peel, pile  (I)(i: )(ai)


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## Marsario

Cooool! Thanks a lot! They had never told me indeed!
Just to be sure: you haven't got long and short consonants in English, have you? For example in both apple and ape the p is short/short-long, isn't it?


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## merquiades

Marsario said:


> Cooool! Thanks a lot! They had never told me indeed!
> Just to be sure: you haven't got long and short consonants in English, have you? For example in both apple and ape the p is short/short-long, isn't it?



I want to say no, but I have a doubt about that. At any rate, not at all like in Italian where it's an important difference.  We don't say ap-ple.  Not even in Italian words adopted like pizza, spaghetti or grappa.
If you check on internet I'm sure you could find all the spelling rules.  They're useful. Just coming to mind.
ind is always full (ai)
bt, the b is silent
check, short because of ck
spell, short for ll
rule, full because of l plus e
I'd say it works 2/3 of the time, but usually not so much in words of foreign origin.
I don't know why people don't learn these guidelines, perhaps because of the exceptions.
That's always the first class I teach, and I always get the same reaction.  No one taught us this!
English is tough but even a semi-orientation is worth it.
It's like which syllable is stressed in Italian.  I had teachers who said:  You can never tell in this language, just listen to Italians

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_orthography#Combinations_of_vowel_letters
this looks complete even the exceptions are given


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## berndf

Marsario said:


> Cooool! Thanks a lot! They had never told me indeed!
> Just to be sure: you haven't got long and short consonants in English, have you? For example in both apple and ape the p is short/short-long, isn't it?


There are different consonant length in English but only as secondary qualities of other phonemes, e.g. _ice_ /aIs/ and _eyes_ /aIz/. Final /z/ is almost completely devoiced though the phonemic contrast is maintained, mainly by length, i.e. many speakers pronounce /aIs/ more or less like [aIs:] and /aIz/ like [aI:s].


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## Jacobtm

Marsario said:


> Why are there two p in apple and one in ape?



Learning English is like being friends with a crazy person.

If you're going to do it, you have to learn to love it's quirks.


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## Marsario

Thank you for the explanations merquiades and berndf!



> Learning English is like being friends with a crazy person.
> 
> If you're going to do it, you have to learn to love it's quirks.



I like that! I think I start quoting it...


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## LisaPaloma

merquiades said:


> We never learn things why there are two p in apple and one p in ape...



I learned (about "long" vowels and "short" vowels-- but that was back in the 60s, and I think it's been out of fashion for years), and I try to teach my students if I have time. I tell my students that English *does* have rules, it's just that they're almost never 100%. Some apply like 50-60% of the time and others maybe 95%. It seems a shame to me that the relatively simple but extremely (IMO) useful explanation of _apple_ and _ape_ (_written_ and _writer_, _hopping_ and _hoping_ etc.) is not included in all basic English textbooks.


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## merquiades

LisaPaloma said:


> I learned (about "long" vowels and "short" vowels-- but that was back in the 60s, and I think it's been out of fashion for years), and I try to teach my students if I have time. I tell my students that English *does* have rules, it's just that they're almost never 100%. Some apply like 50-60% of the time and others maybe 95%. It seems a shame to me that the relatively simple but extremely (IMO) useful explanation of _apple_ and _ape_ (_written_ and _writer_, _hopping_ and _hoping_ etc.) is not included in all basic English textbooks.



Hi Lisa. Same experience different place!  Those are the classic mistakes of someone who has studied years of English but never has learnt the rules.  I get writting and hopping all the time.  I always say to them, pronounce that word you wrote, you wrote down something completely different.  They often look at me like I'm from another planet.  I'd add that entrenched pronunciation mistakes would be minimized if they learnt these rules from the beginning.


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## LisaPaloma

@Merquiades, I hadn't heard that use of "full". Just "long" and "short", and I think it's important to note that the "long" and "short" designations don't really refer to the _length_ or duration of the sound-- the names are just conventions. The "long" sound of a vowel is the same as its name. Thus, the "a" in _wait, mate, day_ has the "long" sound of a, [ei].


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## LisaPaloma

Definitely, Merquiades! And UNLEARNING that pronunciation is oh-so-difficult!


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## merquiades

LisaPaloma said:


> @Merquiades, I hadn't heard that use of "full". Just "long" and "short", and I think it's important to note that the "long" and "short" designations don't really refer to the _length_ or duration of the sound-- the names are just conventions. The "long" sound of a vowel is the same as its name. Thus, the "a" in _wait, mate, day_ has the "long" sound of a, [ei].


Lisa, the way I learned it "full" refers to pronouncing the vowel the same way as we call it in the alphabet. "Cake" with "A", "Bike" with "I". "Long" and "short" is just a convention to refer to the key distinctions made between the different vowel sounds like beat versus bit, note versus not, etc.  The first is more stressed (defined and long) than the second (often pretty lax). In England they do tend to stress the long vowels quite a bit more so than in America so the long/short terms are more relevant and precise in this case.



> Definitely, Merquiades! And UNLEARNING that pronunciation is oh-so-difficult!


It's a pity.  Once you learn bad habits it's so hard to undo them.


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