I wonder how native English speakers do it, but here’s how I approach this problem.
My trick involves using a consistent spelling system for encoding a random letter sequence into a sound which I can memorize. When writing, you just pull those auditory memories, decode the sounds back to the original alphabet salad, and you’re done! Needlessly complicated, but that’s a common theme in English anyway, so it should fit right in.
To make this method work, you need a consistent spelling system, so you could make one up or modify one previously invented for another language. Basically anything more consistent than English should do, so it’s a pretty low bar to clear.
Here are some example words to test this idea with:
- carburetor
- carburettor
- carburetter
Pronounce those letter sequences using that alternate spelling system. It won’t sound like English, but it’s consistent and that’s all we care about at this stage. The end of each word could sound like this:
- [retor]
- [retːor]
- [reter]
In my system, each letter corresponds to a specific sound like e=[e], a=[ɑ] etc. I’ve been thinking of including the Italian c=[tʃ], but you could use other languages too. Feel free to mix and match, as long as you make it consistent.
The idea is that it’s easier to memorize sounds rather than whimsical letter sequences. Once you have those funny sounds in your head, it’s easy to use that same consistent spelling system to convert the sound back to letters.
Once you know that trick, it suddenly becomes a lot easier to spell common words like “island”, “salmon”, “subtle”, or “wednesday. For example “cache” could be stored as [tʃatʃe] in my head. Still haven’t settled on a good way to store the letter c, so I’m open to suggestions.
Yeah, it’s a pretty simple language, though you have to be VERY aware of context or you lose the thread rapidly.
I appreciate how information dense it is, though, if you’re paying attention.
Tones are damn hard for me to pronounce though, but I guess it’s something your mouth gets used to after a while, just like how I got used to the Nahuatl ‘tl’ (does not sound like it’s written, more like ‘xghil’)
deleted by creator
You use tones all the time. It’s just that you call it “intonation” and it’s at the semantic level of the language. In the various tonal languages (most of them in the Chinese family) they’re part of the lexis and called “tones”.
The difficulty isn’t in pronouncing them. Trust me, you pronounce the four tones of Mandarin ALL THE TIME when speaking English. The difficulty lies in the fact you’re using them for radically different purposes and this is screwing up the wiring in your head.