Why? Consider examples such as these: We can’t develop rules about how to convert single letters to single IPA symbols in English. For some languages this is possible, but not for English. For example ...

In English, we have 5 (well, sometimes 6) vowel letters, but way more vowel sounds. That’s where the IPA can help us! We learn about vowels, those sounds you can sing with your mouth open ...

It is quite understandable why some people would consider English to be a tonal language. In fact, I used to ponder this particular question many times myself. English […] Tonal languages are ...

To make the subject a little less arbitrary, I explained that Chaucer's English had been as phonetic as modern German; "knight" was pronounced "ka-nikht;" almost a sneeze. Then, I said ...