English letter sequence with most pronunciations


The letters -ough- can be pronounced a ridiculous number of different ways in English. Here is a possibly incomplete list:



  • tough, enough

  • cough, trough

  • bough, plough

  • though, dough

  • thought, bought

  • through

  • thorough, borough

  • weirdos like hiccough, hough, lough.


Are there any other letter sequences in English near this crazy? How do non-English speakers cope with trying to learn a language as messy as this?



Answer



Answer to (2):


We memorize each exceptional word. In the grand scheme of things, this is actually not a huge number of words. Consider Chinese and Japanese, who have a large number meaning-based characters that provide little to no information about their pronunciation at all. If memorizing the pronunciation of thousands of characters is possible, then memorizing English words with exceptional spelling seems almost trivial.


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