oberon please! thanks for the fun games :)

There is a simplified "spelling" system, and you can see it represented on the IPA chart (http://www.phonetics.ucla.edu/course/chapter1/chapter1.html). Instead of using letters, each individual sound has its own symbol (some of which happen to be just like the letters we usually assign them to). Instead of having to worry about how to pronounce the different "a" sounds in words like "hat" vs. "cape" vs. "mall", each of those sounds has its own symbol. It's also universal, so you could read a word in, say, Chinese, "spelled" using IPA transcription, and you would be able to pronounce it (as opposed to reading something in a language using their symbols and having no clue how to say it out loud). You won't be able to figure out what it means (it is still a foreign language!), but you can see how it is meant to be pronounced.