As the girls have been learning to read over the past year, I have been marvelling at how anyone ever learns to read in English. The spelling makes no sense.

In Finnish, every letter is always pronounced the same way, so once you know the letters, reading is pretty straightforward. To make up for it, Finnish words can be ridiculously long, and tiny changes can completely change the meaning of a word. But still. At least it is consistent.

I was well into my teens before the concept of a spelling bee made any sense to me whatsoever.