If we spoke the way we wrote...

I have been musing about the complexities of the English language and the perilous pitfalls it places for new learners of the language. Why would you have a spelling such as "laugh" and pronounce it as "laff"? Can you even try to say "laugh" as it is?
Here are a list of words and try to pronounce them as they are written.
1) scent
2) cake
3) knave
4) friend (sounds like a cross between "fried" and "hind" (~o~)//)\
5) mauve
6) doubt
7) island

After all these spelling subtleties, you probably wish you spoke another language other than English. Then you should probably speak the most widely spoken language in the world, which happens to be Mandarin Chinese. Now there's a thought to ponder!! Maybe English is the lesser of the two "evils"!!

Twilights in Tokyo

After a short but satisfying trip to Tokyo- the mecca of gizmos and gadgets- I thought I will pen down my impressions. Tokyo had a lot of new things-
1) Taller buildings- stepping on the escalators sometimes gave me agraphobic agony but it's all part of a day's work
2) English announcements in Japanese trains- Who would thought that this would come to pass in Japan?
3) More Japanese being able to speak in English- (The old order giving way to the new?!)
4) More prohibitively expensive