Dear Roger and friends,
What about English pronunciation? I have never completely mastered it maybe because I never had enough verbal exchange with any English-speaking person, and also because I never visited the United States because I was denied a visa several times until I gave up going. The longest verbal exchange that I had with an English-speaking person was at twenty, and it was with a lovable American girl who visited my country and who was a little under my age; I got along very nicely with her for about three months, during which we mostly talked (but also kissed each other many times) until she left. She really was a great help and our daily talks over a couple of months were the foundation for my learning to speak the glorious language a little more fluently than before.
All other learning I mostly did on my own, except for a period of three years along which I studied advanced English-Spanish translation at a nice Institute. There I was told the English language has in fact no rules of pronunciation, the only rule being that there actually are no rules worthy of the name as the exceptions are more numerous than the regular cases. And that was it.
I believe the problem with English pronunciation arises from the fact that it, like the pronunciation of all other major western languages except perhaps for German (which became fixed with Luther) evolved a lot over history but its spelling, unlike the spelling of other great European languages such as French and Spanish, did not change accordingly. So while many words completely changed in the course of time in the way there were pronounced, others changed to a lesser extent and still others did not change at all. A complete chaos in fact for a non-English speaker.
With Spanish it is a completely different case. The general rule here is, "a word is spelled such as it is pronounced, and viceversa." There is no way of mispelling a word if you know how it is pronounced, nor is there any way of mispronouncing a word once you have learnt how to write it. Any changes in pronunciation have been followed shortly by a modification in the spelling.
However, for all the difficulty we Spanish-speakers have in pronouncing many English words that may have changed considerably over the last few centuries, and even if we are at odds at times with the many intricacies and absurdities that it may have, we still love it as the charming and beautiful language it is. Can you believe that?
Best Wishes,
Luis Miguel Goitizolo
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