[usr1106]

> the actual pronunciation can be quite unexpected, compared to the text.

Not at all. French is over 95% many to one: From a given spelling it's clear how to pronounce it. Of course you need to know the rules and enough practice. Just writing dictations is really hard, because the same pronunciation can be spelled various ways. And it's not even enough to know how to spell the word. You need to understand the meaning of the sentence, because there are endings that are not pronounced, but depend on the grammar.

English is much more many to many. The same letter combinations can have different pronunciations and the other way round. GHOTI is either pronounced fish or completely silent... GH as in enough or in right. And so on for all remaining letter (groups). You can't do that in French.

[jgwil2]

The GHOTI example is rather contrived as it ignores so much context. For instance, you're claiming that "ti" can be pronounced "sh" on the basis of the pronunciation of the Latin-derived suffix "-tion," but in fact "ti" would never, ever be pronounced that way at the end of a word. Same with silent "gh" at the beginning of a word.

[wrycoder]

Well, for me anyway, compared to Latin, German, Japanese and Spanish it's very hard to listen to and write down what's being said, which is why I gave up on the class, because that's what the professor was asking us to do.

[usr1106]

You cannot do that instinctively. It requires internalizing the rules which will take a while, a couple of months probably, longer in lower grades at school.