[jaylaal]

Nice comparison. When I was living in China, I'd encounter someone who forgot how to write the characters for a word on a weekly basis. I think the difference is that with Latin alphabets you can still misspell something, and having gotten it down on paper, still rely on phonetics to convey your meaning.

[teleforce]

Alphabet is such an underrated invention. It's probably higher in significance compared to the invention of wheel. It's the original "bicycle of the mind". For example, Korea pivoting from Chinese characters to its own alphabet or Hangul is very well documented including the positive effects it has in the much improved Korean literacy and civilization after the conversion. Fun facts anyone can learn Hangul alphabet in a single day if they wanted to but the same cannot be said to Chinese characters. If your mother tongue is Korean (e.g Korean American) that only just started learning, it only take one day turnover from illiterate to literate.

[coffeeling]

Scripts being the main driver of literacy is a pet peeve of mine. It's not the script, it's the schooling system. The high rates of literacy in modern states are just a result of the school system - Japan has a high literacy rate, for example, and their writing system is either the worst in the world or close to it.

That said, the characters are a whole boatload of unnecessary extra effort, and as a student of the two languages, the artificial illiteracy created by kanji, where I often just can't read words I've known for years, is simply maddening. Not having to wrestle with characters does free up a lot of time for both native and foreign students alike.

[teleforce]

>their writing system is either the worst in the world or close to it

Yes, it's probably the worst since even Microsoft until now still struggle to provide proper search solution for Japanese names in their Windows OS due to their multitude of writing systems.

By sheer wills of course you can make everything hard feasible but that does not means it's efficient and effective. I consider Japanese as a unique country with extraordinary people that can collectively overcome adversity, that's include a non intuitive and difficult writing systems.

[rahimnathwani]

  If your mother tongue is Korean (e.g Korean American) that only just started learning, it only take one day turnover from illiterate to literate.

Heritage speakers (of any language, not just Korean) often have limited vocabulary and limited exposure to complex grammar. Being able to sound out words wouldn't be enough to allow a heritage speaker able to fluently read a newspaper.

How many Korean-Americans know the Korean words for things like 'legislature', 'inflation', or 'geopolitical tensions'?

[taeric]

This is an area where the modern insistence that English isn't phonetic baffles me.

[superjan]

It’s probably more phonetic than Chinese but significantly less phonetic than Dutch.

[taeric]

The term that would cover what you mean here is regular. And that is only in regards to correct spelling. Is obviously complicated when considering that we don't have official pronunciation across all dialects for the same word. Even if we do agree on a spelling.

But it is a complete non-sequitur to lead to the modern idea that English isn't phonetic.

[tsimionescu]

This is not about regular VS irregular, there are aspects of English spelling that are highly non-phonetic. It's not uncommon to have letters in words that are entirely irrelevant to the pronunciation. For example the spellings "programme" and "program" would be read the same by any English reader, and yet both persist in certain places. The s in island is completely unnecessary.

Also, the same English word can be read in very different ways by the same speaker, but in different contexts. This is most proeminent with some of the most common words in English - a, the, there, and many other connective words can be pronounced very differently by the same speaker in the same speech, depending on stress (for example "a" can be pronounced as either ə if unstressed or eɪ if stressed). And yet, there is no version of written English that differentiates these - another sign that English is not a phonetic spelling.

Of course, on the other hand, you can't say that there is no correlation between spelling and pronunciation, like you can in Mandarin and other Chinese languages.

[taeric]

That is what is typically meant by a regular orthography. Wikipedia also calls it deep and shallow. These are legit terms that pre-exist to this odd debate that English isn't phonetic.

Nobody that knows how to read English at a level to be on an internet forum is surprised that English has odd spelling. Many people would be deeply confused to be told that written English doesn't follow a phonetic system. Rightfully so.