• squaresinger@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    English spelling is easy enough that in 95% of cases you can match up the spoken word with the written word.

    How’s the percentage of that for Chinese?

    In fact, if you want a language where it’s actually hard to know how a word is pronounced if you only ever see it in the written form, you gave yourself the answer.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      in 95% of cases you can match up the spoken word with the written word.

      I’d be curious to know if that’s actually true.

      How’s the percentage of that for Chinese?

      If you know your radicals? We’ll say “also 95%” just to be annoying.

      But how do you learn the radicals? Same way you learn all the standard English pronunciations. Repetition.