Quote Originally Posted by Mark
Yes, English does have quite a large disconnect between the written words and the spoken. Whereas other languages such as Spanish (I believe), words are pretty much spelled as they are spoken.

Languges evolve and the way words are used and pronounced changes over time, but the written language is much more difficult to change, I believe in the likes of Spain they do change spellings of words to make them fit and it's also why Spanish children are much better at spelling!
I don't know spanish. However I've noticed some strange pronunciation of X, B and V.