Pronunciation poem

This is an anonymous poem about how strange English spelling is. Joanne Rudling commented on it on one of her recent blogs posts.

Self-study activity:
Read the poem aloud to find out for yourself how well you manage with the poem.
Then download and listen to the recording that Joanne has made, compare and work on the words that might have caused you some difficulty.

Finally, make a point of dropping by Joanne Rudling's blog on a regular basis to get further insight on the intricacies of English spelling.

I take it you already know

Of tough and cough and dough?
But what about, hiccough, thorough and through?

Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird,

And dead: it's said like bed, not bead --
For goodness sake don't call it 'deed'!

Watch out for meat and great and threat...
They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.
(meat-suite, great-straight, threat-debt.)

There isn't a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, or broth in brother,

And here is not in there
But ear is in dear and fear
But not in bear and pear;

And then there's dose and rose
But lose, goose and choose,

And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword,

And do and go and thwart and cart --
Come, come, I've hardly made a start!

A dreadful language? Man alive!
I'd learned to speak it when I was five!

But will I write it before I die?
I hope so, I say with a sigh!