English spelling is broken
Fo√ne…tic √Ēng…lish fixes it
The problem isn’t you or your teacher
The problem is English spelling.
Fo√ne…tic √Ēng…lish adds the missing information so every word can be read with confidence: no rules, no guessing, no overwhelm and better English grades. Fo√ne…tic √Ēng…lish makes EVERYTHING easier.
“A series of brilliant innovations that will revolutionize language teaching”
UNSW Prof Emeritus
John Sweller, Founder of
Cognitive Load Theory
Why reading English is so hard
- English spelling often lacks the information needed to decode words accurately.
- There are 42 English sounds but only 26 characters, so letters make more than one sound.
"signed" has "76,800" possible pronunciations under standard rules.
- So many words can’t be sounded out reliably:
How “signed” can make 76,800 different sounds
- The result:
- Nobody can succeed when they’re missing so much information.
- So English-speaking learners take 2.5–3 years to reach fluency.
- Italian dyslexics can graduate university without reading intervention because phonetic Italian is easier to learn than irregular English. Fo√ne…tic √Ēng…lish helps struggling readers by making English phonetic, more like Italian.
- In phonetic languages like Finnish, learners become fluent in 6 months.
- The problem isn’t you. The problem is English spelling. But if we add the missing information to English, we can learn more like the Finns — in way less time.
Backed by Cognitive Load Theory
Fo√ne…tic √Ēng…lish can be learned in minutes
The Golden Rule
How the Fo√ne…tic √Ēng…lish Font Works
- Letters with no superscripts make their usual sounds a , b , c
- Pronounce the superscript not the letter ş, ć, č, ü, æ
- Capital vowels say their name â, ê, í, õ, ů, Ẃ, ý, Υ
- Greyed out letters are silent: “know” pronounced nõ; “debt” pronounced det
- Stressed syllables start with • and unstressed syllables start with ◦, e.g. √con…tract (agreement) and con√tract (get smaller)
- A consonant with the superscript u makes the sound “consonant u”, e.g. the syllable …Εle in √câ…Εle makes the sound "bul".
- With these few rules, you can decode any English word — confidently, accurately, and without exceptions.
We call Fo√ne…tic √Ēng…lish Phonics 2.0 — a generational upgrade.
Listen like a native English speaker
- Fo√ne…tic √Ēng…lish provides you with tools that let you practice recognizing English sounds. You hear the sound of an English syllable or word, and you select the word that makes that sound. There may be more than one word with the same sound. With practice, you will be able to hear and recognize English sounds without thinking, just like a native English speaker.
- This exercise teaches you to
- Recognize the sound of the word as it is played, developing your listening skills
- Recognize the written word (or words) that make the sound, teaching you sightwords, and
- Gives you the sound and shape of the word, which helps you with spelling.
- You may learn some English sounds more quickly if you learn to make the sounds
Humans did not evolve to read, and must be explicitly taught the reading process
Reading is not natural; humans didn’t evolve to read. The reading process:
- We look at a line of written words and “hear” the silent words in our minds.
- We repurpose the speech part of the brain to “hear” and understand the silent words in our head.
- We understand best when we read at the speed we speak — about 100 words per minute, called fluent reading.
- At fluent reading speed, there’s no time to decode the sounds of words
- We have to look at a word and instantly know its sound and meaning.
- Words recognised instantly like this are called sightwords.
- The fastest path to fluent reading is the rapid acquisition of sightwords.
Learn sightwords quickly using Progressive Sounding Out
- Fo√ne…tic √Ēng…lish enables the sounding out of long syllables with progressive sounding-out:
- Progressive sounding-out: there are just two pieces in working memory so even long syllables can be sounded out:
- 1. the blended sound so far, and
- 2. the next sound to add.
- Worked example — the syllable “strengths”:
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1. s + t → st
-
2. st + r → str
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3. str + e → stre
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4. stre + ng → streng
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5. streng + th → strength
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6. strength + s → strengths
Learning sightwords is even faster with syllables
- Syllables are a natural building blocks units of spoken language.
- Simply make the sounds of “black” and “smith” without a pause to say the word “blacksmith”. Its easy to sound out words syllable by syllable.
- Fo√ne…tic √Ēng…lish optimizes syllable breaks
- Fo√ne…tic √Ēng…lish marks syllable boundaries so the syllables are instantly recognizable, their meanings are clear, and the pronunciation of the word is accurate. Some dictionaries focus on making the sound as accurate as possible, but this can lead to problems:
- Fo√ne…tic √Ēng…lish mark up of “parking”: •park◦ing → learners instantly see park + the suffix “ing” – easy to recognize, with meaning maintained, and accurate pronunciation.
- Compare to mark up in some other dictionaries: •par◦king → accurate pronunciation but par + king obscures meaning and is harder to recognize.
- Why syllables reduce overload
- Most syllables have just 2–4 phonemes, so they’re short, learnable chunks.
- Familiar syllables become reusable building blocks across many words.
- Fo√ne…tic √Ēng…lish teaches the most frequent syllables first, so recognition compounds quickly.
- The old way to sound out words can overwhelm learners:
- Familiar syllables become reusable building blocks across many words.
- s + t + r + e + ng + th + s = 8 separate items in working memory.
- Humans can only juggle a few bits of information in working memory; pushing past that limit feels like overwhelm and no learning happens. Longer syllables can be hard to sound out.
- The fast track to thousands of words
- Master 200 common syllables and you can decode 4,000–5,000 words built from them
- When you can recognize syllables by sight, you can sound out words syllable by syllable, making it easy and fast to learn sight words.
- Use Fo√ne…tic √Ēng…lish tools to hear
- Any word pronounced slowly with clear syllables sounds,
- Any word pronounced syllable by syllable,
- Any syllable progressively sounded out phoneme by phoneme
- This three-level support makes words and syllables easier to recognise, remember, and read.
Once you learn a word in Fo√ne…tic √Ēng…lish, you can read it in standard English
Humans evolved the ability to spot the shape of camouflaged predators, like snakes hiding in the grass. Even when colour blends into the background, our brains instantly pick out the outline as in the image below.
This same skill lets us recognise the shape of words.
Once you’ve sounded out a word in Fonetic English, its shape is locked in.
From then on, you can recognise it instantly — no matter whether it’s:
- printed in a normal font
- written in curly script
- badly printed
- handwritten
- Disguised words are used to prove we are humans, not computers
By using the brain’s built-in shape recognition, learning a word in FE means you can read it anywhere, in any style of English writing.
Tools that make learning faster
Fo√ne…tic √Ēng…lish comes with a suite of interactive tools that make progress faster, easier, and more engaging:
Dictionary + Sounding-Out
- 20,000+ words, each with simple definitions, examples, and images.
- Hear every word spoken slowly, every syllable separately, and each syllable progressively sounded out.
- Practice pronunciation by recording your voice and comparing instantly with the native reference.
“Dictionary Video”
Mouth Movement Instructions
- Detailed guidance for making each of the 42 English phonemes.
- Step-by-step written instructions, diagrams, and videos.
- Record and compare your pronunciation to master each sound.
Mouth Movement Video
Cross-Language Phoneme Comparison
- We’ve mapped the 42 English phonemes against the phonemes of 100 languages. For each learner’s language:
- Same sound, same spelling → nothing new to learn.
- Same sound, different spelling → just learn the English spelling.
- Close sound → easier to learn, because it’s similar to what you already know.
- Missing sound →
- 10 common English words containing the missing sound as displayed; chances are, you already know some may not have to learn them.
- Missing sound that are not known are taught in steps
- Start learning the missing sound with syllables containing two or more sounds you already know plus the missing sound.
- Gradually reduce the number of sounds you already know until only the missing sound remains and you can now discriminate it accurately.
- This makes even unfamiliar sounds easy to hear, say, and remember.
Cross-Language Phoneme Comparison
Auditory Discrimination Trainer
- Hear a sound and choose the correct word, syllable, or phoneme spelling.
- Immediate feedback strengthens recognition and sharpens listening skills.
- Builds the ability to hear English sounds automatically — without conscious effort.
Auditory Discrimination Trainer
- These tools ensure learners don’t waste time on what they already know, while giving extra focus where they need it most.
Vocabulary grows faster when you can quickly decode new words
One of the most powerful ways people build vocabulary is by reading. We often meet a new word, decode its sound, and then work out its meaning from the context of the sentence or story.
In English, this process is slow and uncertain because spelling hides so much information. In Fo√ne…tic √Ēng…lish, every new word can be decoded quickly and accurately. That means learners can focus on the meaning of the text, infer new words naturally, and grow their vocabulary much more quickly.
If the meaning is not clear from context, the Fo√ne…tic √Ēng…lish eReader lets you click on the word to see a precise translation into your native language and to hear it pronounced. This ensures that both sound and meaning are clear, so new words are learned with confidence.
With Fo√ne…tic √Ēng…lish, every page you read becomes an opportunity to learn new words with confidence.
Reading practice that builds every skill
The fastest way to improve English is to read a lot. Once decoding is easy with Fo√ne…tic √Ēng…lish, students can focus on meaning and build vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension through wide reading.
We will provide reading practice materials at the right level for each student — texts they actually want to read. These can be based on school subjects (for example, for an Indonesian student, Indonesian history written in English so they learn history and improve English at the same time) or on topics chosen by the students themselves. That way, learners build English while also learning about things that matter to them.
Every text will come with comprehension questions. If a student answers incorrectly, they will receive a hint and a chance to try again. By the time they get the right answer, they will also understand why it is right.
The Fo√ne…tic √Ēng…lish eReader App
- The Fo√ne…tic √Ēng…lish eReader app makes practice personal and powerful. Students can:
- Read any text in Fo√ne…tic √Ēng…lish with full decoding support.
- Tap any word to hear it, see the syllables sounded out, and compare their own pronunciation.
- Instantly see word-by-word translations into their native language.
- Build vocabulary faster by linking sound, spelling, meaning, and translation in one step.
- With the Fo√ne…tic √Ēng…lish eReader, every reading session strengthens decoding, comprehension, and vocabulary — all at once.
Try Fonetic English free for one month
We want every learner to succeed — so you can try Fonetic English for free for your first month. See for yourself how quickly reading becomes easier, more confident, and less stressful.
Simple, fair pricing
Fonetic English is priced to be affordable everywhere. A monthly subscription costs about the same as two Big Macs in your country — a small cost for a premium service that can transform your reading and learning.
Rewards for effort
We know that success comes from regular practice. That’s why we reward students who put in the time:
- 20% discount if you practise 30 minutes every day.
- 55% discount if you practise 1 hour every day.
The more you practise, the less you pay — because the harder you work, the faster you improve.
