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Chapter 3 The sound of language This tale, however unlikely, may serve as a reminder that the sound of spoken English do no match up, a lot of time, with letters of written English. If we can not use the letters of the alphabet in a consistent way to represent the sound we make, how do we go about describing the sound of language like English It is often said that languages differ by sound or melody. What does this mean? Only when one begins consciously the process of learning a foreign language, does one notice that the language in question possesses sounds far removed from those in one’s own, and not even produced in the same manner. Sometimes, there are also sounds which sound similar, yet prove to be different by a minute, but essential, detail. Those sounds cannot simply be replaced by sounds one knows from their own language.