Why Is The English Language So Difficult To Pronounce And Spell.docx

Sinh viên: Nguyễn Hữu Nam
Lớp: FHCT418

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC MỞ HÀ NỘI

ĐỀ KIỂM TRA TỰ LUẬN
MÔN: Lịch sử phát triển Tiếng Anh
Mã môn: EN15

Đề 1: Why is the English language so difficult to pronounce and spell?
As everybody who has studied English as a foreign language knows –
English is a relatively easy language to learn, up to a point. It is easy and quick for
most learners to reach intermediate level, as the basic grammatical structures are
straight forward, and the vocabulary is simple. This is one reason why English has
become so popular as an international ‘lingua franca’ – to speak it to a level in
which two people can communicate is quite easy.
But then when students aim for a higher level, things get more difficult. The
real difficulties in mastering English to a proficient level are firstly spell and
pronunciation.
1. So why is English language pronunciation so difficult?
Why do students who speak a high level of grammatical English, make so
many mistakes when they actually say their perfectly constructed sentences? In this
post, I will explain 6 key difficulties in English pronunciation:
a. Written vs Spoken English
It would be a lot simpler to pronounce English if the written form resembled
the spoken form more closely. Amongst the most confusing bits are silent letters –
r, l, b, h, k, n, p, s, t & w are all silent some of the time. Then there are letters that
can be pronounced in lots of different ways – ‘s’ can be pronounced as /z/, ‘t’ can
be pronounced in at least 5 ways, and an ‘n’ can become /m/ or /ŋ/. And that’s just
consonants – English contains 19 vowel sounds, but it only has 5 vowels to spell
them with, so who could possibly guess that ‘good’, ‘food’ and ‘blood’ all contain

different vowel sounds (/ʊ/, /u:/ and /ʌ/)?
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Sinh viên: Nguyễn Hữu Nam
Lớp: FHCT418

b. Sounds
English has 19 vowel sounds and 25 consonant sounds. Its vowel sounds cover the
entire range of mouth positions – front, centre, back, open, close, spread, relaxed
and rounded. Some vowels are long, others short, but all vowels change length
depending on the level of stress on them. Many students speak languages with
fewer vowels – a lot of modern languages (Spanish, Japanese, Arabic to name a
few) have no more than 5 vowel sounds, for most learners, the 19 vowel sounds
present an important area of study.
Consonant sounds are also problematic – nearly everyone needs to learn the
‘th’ sounds /θ/ & /ð/, the approximant ‘r’ sound often requires attention, and other
sounds such as /h/, /w/ and /ŋ/ cause a lot of errors. All students need to pay
attention to accurate consonant production: voicing and placement need to be
mastered.
c. Joining
Aside from the sounds of English, it is important to join everything together
correctly. English has various ways of joining words: assimilation (2 sounds
change each other), elision (one sound disappears), vowel + vowel joining (we add
a /r/, /j/ or /w/ between the sounds) and consonant + vowel joining (a consonant
joins the next syllable). Sometimes these are rather bizarre – in the sentence ‘law
and order’ only one /r/ would be pronounced – between ‘law_r_and’ – even though
it is spelt with a ‘w’.
d. Weak/Strong Structure
English is made of strong and weak sounds. The most common sound in

English is the schwa sound /ə/ – which should be pronounced roughly one in every
three vowel sounds. The problem is, the schwa is impossible to see on the written
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Sinh viên: Nguyễn Hữu Nam
Lớp: FHCT418

page. In order to hear it – listen and read the passage below, which has the sound
written in phonetics:
e. Intonation & Stress
The English are famous for saying one thing and meaning another – using
intonation to show meaning. These subtleties can be lost on a learner of English.
English uses a wide pitch range and four patterns – fall, fall-rise, rise & rise-fall.
The rules of English stress are simple to learn, but impossible to see on the written
page. If a learner of English is misunderstood, it is more often due to misplaced
stress than incorrect pronunciation – for this reason stress is perhaps the most
important aspect of clear speech.
f. English is orthographically conservative
So, in the 1st century the Romans invaded Britain and brought paved roads,
togas, and the Roman alphabet. For the next millennium, Latin mixed with the
languages of the Angles, Saxons, and Vikings, depending on who was invading or
ruling. But 1066 rolled around and the Normans (modern day French) invaded
Britain as they usually do—with style. French became the language of the ruling
classes and replaced English, but the common people continued to speak their
native language. This can be seen in words like sheep and cow which are AngloSaxon, but meat from these animals (mutton and beef) are French. French was the
longest staying foreigner and is responsible for pushing out hard Old English
sounds for softer sounds. It also made it next to impossible to spell words as people
hear them.
Though the British later told the French to go home, they decided the

language was pretty enough to keep. From then on, English began to get new words
by gathering different exotic words from its colonies (e.g. bungalow, zebra).
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Sinh viên: Nguyễn Hữu Nam
Lớp: FHCT418

2. Here are five reasons why English language spelling is so difficult:
a. English words are from all over the place
The English language has been heavily influenced by European invaders; art,
music and literature; the colonisation of other countries; and immigration. Even
common-sounding words can originate from far-away places, such as: ‘rucksack’
(borrowed from German) or ‘pyjamas’ (borrowed from Hindi).
b. There are different ways of spelling the same sound
Because English is so full of borrowed language, words that may sound alike
when you say them aloud aren’t always spelt similarly. The words ‘tall’ and
‘shawl’ rhyme, for example, but the ‘aw’ sound is spelt differently in each.
c. This can sometimes include words that sound exactly the same
Words that sound the same but have different spellings and meanings are
called heterographs. The words ‘hair’ and ‘hare’, for example, sound the same, but
mean different things. Sometimes, to make things even more confusing, words can
be heterographs in some accents, but not in others. In most American accents the
words ‘merry’ and ‘marry’, as well as the name ‘Mary’, are all pronounced the
same!
d. Some words have totally different meanings but are spelt and
pronounced the same
These words are called homonyms. The word ‘ball’, for example, can refer to
both a toy and to a formal dance.
e. What about words that are spelt the same but are pronounced

differently?

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Sinh viên: Nguyễn Hữu Nam
Lớp: FHCT418

Yes, perhaps unfortunately, these exist too! These words are called
heteronyms. The words ‘desert’, ‘tear’, and ‘number’, for example, can all mean
two different things depending on how they are pronounced.

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