Re: French

----- Original Message ----
> From: Adam Walker <carrajena@...>
> even one spelled as
> interestingly as French is far more comprehensible. 
Are you speaking here of comprehensibility in reading, or in hearing? I've studied
both German and French. I can read French penny-dreadful fiction at about half
my normal English reading speed; German, at about a tenth. Listening to each,
though, I can pick up more German words than French words from a movie
soundtrack. (Ja, echt!)

Comparing French to Spanish, I'd say it's not the French spelling that's creative so
much as French pronunciation... which is to say, French spelling retains
historic sounds still present in other Romance languages, in the same way that
English spelling retains the silent letters in "knight," still pronounced in
German "Knecht."

-- Paul

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