"So you think French is hard!" I take it you already know Of tough and bough and cough and dough. Others may stumble, but not you, On hiccough, thorough, though, and through - Well done! And now you wish perhaps To learn of less familiar traps? Beware of heard, a dreadful word That looks like beard and sounds like bird, And dead - it's said like bed, not bead. Watch out for meat and great and threat (They rhyme with suite and straight and debt). A moth is not a moth in mother, Nor both in bother, broth in brother. And here is not a match for there Nor dear and fear for bear and pear. And then there's dose and rose and lose, Just look them up - goose and choose And cork and work and card and ward And front and font, and word and sword And do and go, and wart and cart - Come! Come! I've hardly made a start! A dreadful language? Man alive! I mastered it - when I was five!!! -- author unknown