[myth2018]

> A native English speaker could still pronounce a word and they would have very little idea how to write it, and therefore won't be able to look it up in a dictionary.

Not by coincidence, in USA they have spelling challenges aired nationwide.

[__david__]

Oh wow, I had never considered that spelling bees might be uniquely English (the language).

[myth2018]

It's not uniquely english

[kevinios]

Indeed, and I suppose spelling bees makes sense for any language that is not written exactly as it is pronounced, French being one of them. From what I've read so far, Esperanto only has a single way to write every sound it uses, so it would be much less challenging.

[myth2018]

Yes. Here in Brazil there are some competitions. It's a challenge indeed (portuguese), but not such a big one.

In Esperanto there is a 1-1 relationship between letters and sounds by design, so a spelling bee wouldn't be a challenge.