Essays

Shi Hui Vivian Lee

Compare and contrast ease and difficulties of understanding spoken and written English.

Understanding English has become significantly important as English seems to be an essential communication tool nowadays. However, some discrepancies have been occurred due to the facts that various methods have been used by different people in work, study and social life. As a result, evaluation and analysis has arisen to deal with standardize and cohere the spoken and written English. This essay attempts to discuss ease and difficulties of understanding spoken and written English in terms of phonetic symbols and general knowledge.

One of the approaches of understanding spoken and written English seems to be the recognition of the pronunciation of English using the phonetic symbols. While a word has been pronounced, phonetic word which has been written can be transferred to it accordingly. It seems to be the easiest approach as the phonetic symbols to be used in English are countable and reliable. Users would not have confused if the phonetic symbols and pronunciation had been known.

      However, there are some arguments have risen that different English’s slangs and accents in different countries result in the wrong forms of phonetic symbols. Thus, the word has been mistakenly spelt. This is particularly would happen when a native speaker pronounce an English word which has to be written by a non-native speaker.

The second approach, which understanding spoken and written English using the common and general knowledge, often being used when interpreting a sentence.   It has been revealed due to the facts that some of the English words have similar pronunciation and phonetic symbols, these words may not be the correct words when combined in a sentence. Therefore, this approach which understanding the meaning of the sentences associate with guessing which words are meant to be has been risen to cope with the problem. It is relatively easy as...