These Are My JOTtings...

What a Challenging Language!

Life in Winnie Kay's Comma Sense Class is challenging, but it is very beneficial, too.
There are many rules and exceptions to the usage of commas.

English is a challenging language.

We have 26 letters in our alphabet.
We have 44 phonemes (or sounds) we can make with these letters.
The European languages of Spanish, German, Italian and French are able to create the 44 phonemes by using a mere 50 or so combinations of letters. At least that is my understanding.
However, English requires 185 different combinations of letters in order to exhaust all of the ways the 44 phonemes can be written.

If you were born in China, then learning English is a real challenge.
26 new characters to know,...
44 new sounds to learn,...
185 exceptional spellings to write the 44 new sounds...
30 new rules to learn, which govern the new symbol, known as a comma,...

Is there any question why my college roommate from Puerto Rico exclaimed,
"You have a STUPID language!"
I agreed with him.

What a challenging language we know only to a small degree!

To review...



"The Chaos"

I'm a member of the Rising Stars Program for 2016-2017