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>Make the user distinguish between each minimal pair in the language, possibly even every single syllable in the language

I have so much trouble spelling words like definately^W definitely, because they sound the same to me ;)




Memorizing how to spell a word like "definitely" would be one of the worst possible uses of a language learner's time.

What I was suggesting was aural training—learn to distinguish words such as "his" and "he's", to hear the differences between bat, bet, bit, bot, but, bait, beet, bite, boat, and boot, etc...

Various idiosyncrasies of an orthographic system are far less important than being able to hear difference between the sounds of a language.


With regards to definite, I found the tie to "finite" helpful.




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