Brunnen

Hi school and spelling

I used to envy those American kids who could attend the spelling competitions. Such amazing opportunity to study etymology, words and build up vocabulary and even get some credit out of it! I don't think there are any similar competitions in Finland, not even anything related to words or their etymology. It would be ridiculous to spell words in Finnish, because the language is just so systematic. The only tricky word would most likely be "aggressiivinen" (=aggressive), since for some reason it is spelled with double g even though that is not necessary for correct pronunciation.

When the latest results of the international PISA study were published and Finland was (again) celebrating the top results, I still couln't swallow the explanations provided. There are no more than maybe five exceptions of spelling every student has to learn in the upper secondary school, and when I read some essays written by teenagers I currently teach as a substitute teacher, I must tell you that those papers were not exactly free of error. Finnish students check their writings by reading the text aloud, not by listing letters. And that is the problem with the very few exceptions that do not follow the way of pronunciation.

Put in short, I think some students (speaking certain languages, like Finnish) are better off in the PISA survey. They know that once they've learned a, e, i, o and u, and g, and j, they can use those letters according to their specific description.

To demonstrate how a language following systematic pronunciation works, I've translated the first passage into "Finglish" - in this context this means English spelled according to English pronunciation, written according to the Finnish spelling.

Ai juust tu envi tous Amerikan kids huu kuld ätend tö spelling kompetishöns. Sach ämeising oportjuniti tu stadi etimolotshi, wööds änd bild ap vokäbuläri änd iiven get sam kredit aut of it!

-- ok, that's all about this exotic mingle for today.
I'm planning to write about German next time... und echt auf Deutsch :)

posted by Anicko @ 8:53 AM