--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, Andrew Dunbar <hippietrail@...> wrote:

>>
> I've been under the impression that French spelling
> is easy for (native) French speakers and difficult
> for foreigners whereas English spelling is difficult
> for (native) English speakers, and very difficult for
> foreigners.

Have you heard of the play "The Bourgeois Gentilhomme" by Moliere?
The premise of the play is that the bourgeois hero cannot become a
gentleman unless he learns how to spell (French, of course, but he
cannot do this.

I am sure that certain things about French spelling, most likely the
percentage of each word that is silent, make it difficult all
around. Reading is more predictable and highly rule bound but
spelling is *not* intuitive. There is a lot of grammatical marking,
(rule bound) but also historical and etymological spelling as in
English for homograph avoidance.

Suzanne