Improving your pronunciation

Legend has it that none other than George Bernard Shaw, prestigious playwright and überfamous wit, first suggested the notion that, if one follows certain spelling rules, the nonexistent term ghoti might be pronounced just like fish. The reasons for such an outlandish claim are spelled out in this stimulating 2015 article.

Whatever the merits of that specific losing battle may be, the truth is that the English spelling system is objectively impractical. Not as impractical as Arabic or (worse still) Chinese, but clearly more so than Italian or Esperanto. That said, when it comes to teaching ESL, I don't particularly care about orthographic issues, mainly because spelling is not my students' number one problem. Today I would like to make something abundantly clear. Orthography should only affect your pronunciation if you decide to be an English reader. I believe that this is not your case. You are, primarily, a speaker of English. Speaker. You want to speak better, don't you? Speaking comes first, right? So let me repeat my old mantra: orthography and pronunciation run in very different lanes.

If you should be curious about my old effort to convert students to the pronunciation cause, you can check out some of the podcasts I edited some time ago. You may have some fun and, while you're at it, find out what I used to look like ten years ago.