Quote Originally Posted by roguedog View Post
someone tell me how on earth we get "mer-ang" out of that word.. i always feel bad for ESL folks with all the French and other languages mixed into ours...
I think it's the NON French/Latin/Italian/Spanish derived words that are harder for most ESL'ers. (Unless they are Chinese etc...in which case ALL english would be hard to learn. ) So much of French/Italian/Spanish are constructed the same way and have words from the same roots.
In Spanish, for instance, when you see the written word, there is only ONE way to pronounce it, there are no weirdo exceptions and rule-breakers in basic pronunciation of letters. None of the infuriating english "I READ that book last week" vs. "I will READ that book next week".....and no "died" and "dyed" or "waited" and "weighted" being pronounced exactly the same way.