No spelling bees in Japan
It just hit me like a ton of bricks today. In Japan there are no spelling bees, you know, those events where people are challenged to spell difficult words in the English language.
Japan does not need them, because Japanese as a spoken language is simple to translate to the Japanese alphabet. There are no tricks, or tricky swapping of vowels.
way, weigh, achieve, receive, hey, hay, roam, Rome, bear, bare, hair, hare… none of that garbage, none.
In Japanese the spelling of a word is always like it sounds. Their alphabet is a phonetic alphabet upon which all words are properly spelled, no exceptions, no two words with like sounds and different spellings.
If two words sound the same in Japanese, they are spelled the same using the Japanese alphabet, end of story.
And it is safe to say, Japanese people don’t even need spell checkers.
English spelling is such a joke.
July 30th, 2009 at 7:35 am
I take offense to this post. We all know American is the great speak’ns in the world and no crazy squiggles from some other country can undo that.
July 30th, 2009 at 7:53 am
hahahaha
July 30th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
I\’d like to stand here and say that little \’quirk\’ about our language is what makes it so beautiful and unique, and it is, but there\’s definitely something to be said for efficiency…
July 30th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
Yes, perhaps you are ryght. I lyke the wey wee can xpress arselves using English. It does add colour to wryting.
July 30th, 2009 at 9:11 pm
Lol…Spanish is like Japanese. Words are spelled the way they are pronounced and it is so much easier! I think spelling/pronouncing words in English is what makes it hard. Grammar isn\’t hard at all compared to Italian, Spanish, German and French but when you actually have to speak omg that\’s when you get in trouble! I feel very confident now but when I was learning I was afraid to pronouce things wrong! I still get in trouble with words that I am not too sure what the difference is when you say them, like duck and dock, or launch and lunch and stuff like that! TJ used to make fun of me for that, in a good way hehe so it didn\’t bother me. I actually enjoyed asking and learning those things ALL the time!
Tricky, but fun!
Btw, the security code is driving me crazy!
It just won’t accept it. Or maybe…do I need glasses?
July 30th, 2009 at 9:16 pm
The security code is tricky. Here are some secrets I’ve found to make sure it always works.
1) Never open up more than one post on my blog at a time. The security code only remembers the last page that was opened.
2) If you can’t read it very well, click the refresh button until you get a very easy to read code
Sorry for the security… but before this thing I was having to filter about 20 SPAM messages a day!
August 5th, 2009 at 6:45 am
Good post, Since I remember in the military we had a fella that was a linguist(?) that could talk in 11 different languages told me that english was actually the hardest of them all for anyone to learn, and he grew up in NYC. It was interesting to note that in your chat. He was sure nice to have around when visiting other countries non english ones. Another thing he noted, most languages are derivitives of a base language, so if it was not one he had known before, he could pick it up enough to ask and answer questions.
August 5th, 2009 at 7:34 am
Yep, his insights are not off the mark. English is one of the hardest for other cultures to learn, and for English native speakers Japanese, Chinese are the hardest to learn (with a few more up there)
I know a guy that works with us that is on a track to know 12 languages by 2012, hes been learning about 1 per year for the past 9 years and practices all of them regularly (his English is probably better than most students in the US and he is Korean!)