Friday, April 20, 2012

Fonetic Spelling **Update**

I've discussed what is irony and the karma of my life. The ultimate irony and karma?  Having taught in English all day in Mexico and I am now teaching in Spanish all day in Iowa.  Don't get me wrong. I am not 100% fluent in Spanish.  I never will be. How many high school English teachers are there in the USA who were born and raised in Mexico?  If I tried to teach Spanish in Mexico or even in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas along the border, I would be laughed out of the classroom.  But this is Iowa.  I've got second year students that are still saying, "Yo poo-edo ir al bann-yo?"

I used to be an excellent speller.  I am a past winner of the Grant Elementary Spelling Bee Competition. I was the kid every one wanted to sit next to during spelling exam day. I could throw together a paper in college without looking in the dictionary. I went to college in the B.C. years - before computers. And now?  I am constantly using the internet to look up words. Why now?  Is my brain becoming atrophied jelly?  I blame Spanish.  Here's some recent goof-ups.

Responsable - suppose to be responsible, folks, with an I but in Spanish it is spelled with an A.  And now apparently I think it should be the same way in English.

Pijamas - suppose to be pajamas, or pyjamas if you're bloody English, Australian, or a New Zealander kiwi like my buddy Tim who also can't spell words like color, theater, or organize either.  (hee, hee, just yanking your chain, Mr. R)

Camara - suppose to be camera.

Ocasion - should be occasion but in Spanish the word ocasion has an accent over the last o.

I shouldn't feel too bad. On a recent test, about 15% of my students misspelled their vocabulary word "farmacia" as "pharmacia".   The beauty of Spanish is that every letter and vowel is pronounced the same way.  No silent g's as in NIGHT or GNOME. No two ways to pronounce a word like READ.  And definitely there are no words with a PH that make an F sound in Spanish.  Why can't English be this simple?  I am doing the best I can changing the spelling of English words into a simpler form, one at a time, but I need your help in my new cause. I propose we all start spelling words as they sound.

Oh, wait. We're already doing that in our text messages.  Talk 2 U L8R.

**Update** Today's English word misspelled - Profesional. 

12 comments:

  1. One of my favourite words in English is "ghoti" which is pronounced "fish" - gh as in cough, o as in women and ti as in nation. It's a fun play on the silliness of some of the English language.

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    1. I've been speaking English all my life and with great certainty can say I have never used the word ghoti. I don't even know what it means.

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  2. Hahahaha! I am with you on the simpler spelling. I often find myself spelling English words in Spanish, especially the word pijamas. :P But a lot of my mistakes are of my wanting to spell Spanish words in English. I've spelled "Ciencias" as "Sciencias", "Jirafa" as "Girafa", and a bunch of other words that I can't remember at the moment. :P

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    1. There are more. I just can't think of them at the moment. Oh, yeah, how about aire and imposible?

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  3. I am also guilty of this. Spanish spelling just makes more sense. I'm trying to teach my son how to read in English now and he is having a really hard time. Keeps wanting to pronounce the "e" at the end of the word.

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    1. You are doing a great service to the boy teaching him to read and write in English. I am sure he is getting the Spanish at school. So many in south Texas can only speak Spanish without being to write it.

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  4. I'm glad someone else is having this problem. Mine's not commonly used Spanish words though, mine's just being retarded in my own language.

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    1. See what you have to look forward to getting older? Just like my dad's t-shirt says, "Been there, done that, can't remember shit." I should inherit this shirt.

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  5. This post was very intertaining, I found it enteresting, yup, I keep interchanging my "I"s and "E"s (I had to put the quotes because otherwise it looked like is and es LOL). I am slowly losing the ability to spell in English. I also find myself not capitalizing the days of the week and languages.
    regards,
    Theresa

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  6. I didn't get to that point before I left Mexico. I guess I needed a bit more time.

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  7. After almost 5 years I do it all the time, and sometimes just slip on over into spanish (no caps) but after teaching and tutoring about 4 years now I have started to argue with people here who tell me their spelling is better because it is phonetic. Tell that to my husband who writes much more poorly than I in spanish. Stupid "h"s with no sound, "s""c""z" with the same sound, bay chico y bay grande ("b" and "v")and "y" and "ll" and then there are all the english words that they not only don't pronouce right but usually misspell too. And should we even discuss my lacks when the teens write me on chat or im on the phone? I get lost in english teen talk...

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  8. No kidding on the how some write in spanish. Trying to decipher it is something else, but I've gotten better. Aki = aqui, ermano = hermano, ke or k = que, etc. But I've seen the way some people text in English so it's all the same.

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