Excerpt from a news article:
English words like "clove" and "love," or "cough" and "bough" that are spelled similarly, but sound different, often puzzle school children who are learning to read, because each word pair can be pronounced correctly only if it has been learned previously. For dyslexics, irregularly spelled words in French and English can be tricky throughout life.
In English, there are 1,120 ways to create some 40 sounds, whereas in Italian, only 33 combinations of letters are needed to make 25 sounds, according to the research.
My dad always complained and said French spelling doesnīt make sense, and I said that it makes more sense than English! French has 250+ ways to spell 32 different sounds. I was teaching English to a native Spanish speaker who couldnīt hear the difference between cheap, chip, ship, sheep. All four words sounded the same to her. Itīs no wonder there are spelling bees in English. English is pretty difficult to learn
I was working with the Colombian Air Force in 2008 when they received a mandate to start using English for all ATC on Fridays and Sundays, and there were a bunch of guys asking if I had a copy of any documents with standard RT phraseology.