Hi again and welcome back to Seattle Learning Academy's American English pronunciation podcast.

My name is Mandy and this is our 159th episode.

English is a phonetic language.

That means that there is a relationship between the spelling of a word

and its pronunciation. Teachers in the United States have the challenge of teaching kids to

read by teaching them which letters and combinations of letters correspond to the sounds

of English. Similarly, one of the goals of pronuncian.com is to help English language learners understand

these phonetic patterns as well.

For English language learners, it is about being able to predict the pronunciation of a word based on its spelling.

However, as you have probably already discovered, the pronunciation of lots of words in English

don't match their spelling. Words whose pronunciation and spelling do not match are called non-phonetic. Children learning to read are

taught to memorize each of these words as a whole word instead of reading it letter by letter.

As adult English learners, a similar memorization process is necessary.

The pronunciation of words that are not pronounced as expected must be memorized.

To help you, each sound lesson on pronuncian.com includes a non-phonetic word section.

This section lists the most important words of English that are pronounced with a sound,

even if the spelling makes it look like it should be pronounced differently.

For example, a classic non-phonetic word is the word said. According to its spelling, the word said should be pronounced as said.

It should rhyme with the word paid.

But it doesn't.

Instead, the word said is pronounced with a short e sound and rhymes with the word bed, as well as the word instead.

Since the word said is non-phonetic, it is included in the short e lesson, along with the words says, friend, guest,

...