r/MadeMeSmile 22h ago

Good Vibes ESL classes be like

1.1k Upvotes

73 comments sorted by

View all comments

52

u/Adventurous-Bee4823 20h ago

When I was learning English (thirty some years ago. Immigrated from Russia, legally, with not a lick of English under my belt) reading it was so confusing. I still to this day do not understand the pronunciation of “Colonel”.

46

u/dayburner 18h ago

That's because colonel is a french word, the real issue is English doesn't know how to properly borrow words.

12

u/Queen_Euphemia 17h ago

I would argue that it is more that English doesn't have a governing body to do spelling reform. If you look at Dutch you realize just how badly we spell our language.