Is English the only major non-phonetic language?

Question

I always understood that English was the only major non-phonetic language, by which I mean words are not necessarily spelt the way they sound. This would imply that "spelling bees" for example are not held in non English speaking countries, because of one hears the word properly pronounced, one can then spell it properly. How true is this, and do they have spelling contests in languages other than English?

Answer 1

Chinese doesn't even have an alphabet or syllabary for common use, and it's the most spoken language in the world. So I would say no, English is not the only one.

Answer 2

I hear Danish is similar.

Answer 3

How about Chinese and Japanese?

But there are also languages like French that often drop the last letter.  Itallian has some strange things, too -- like the 'cc' combination sounding like 'ch'

Then you have Spanish (from Spain, not Latin America) pronouncing the 'c' like 'th'

Answer 4

French has A LOT of silent letters

i swera its like you dont even say the last letter lol

like est

is et

Answer 5

All languages are phonetic[even the one used by the blind and deaf are phonetic, if you talk about how it's used- it uses letters, letters are phonetic, but if you talk about it's usage, it's not phonetic-Braille are raised dots, sign languages are made by hand gestures, along with body language: Braille & sign languages [each language has a different type of sign language]!], otherwise, you wouldn't need sounds for each letter, character pronunciations, etc...

Answer 6

Uh, excuse me, but English IS a phonetic language.  Because it borrows from so many other languages, there are exceptions, but it still remains a phonetic language.