What is the Difference between Written and Spoken English?
When we write, we can see the boundaries between words; but when we speak, there is no actual boundary between the words (our brain is able to insert them based on the stream of sounds we hear). Thus, when we hear “jeetyet,” we can understand it to mean did you eat yet; whereas if we read jeetyet on a page, we might look for a dictionary. In some ways, writing and speaking are very different, and we have to learn to map one onto the other so that we can write down what we hear and can say what is written. Learning to speak takes very little teaching. Learning to write can take a great deal of teaching. Other differences are worth noting as well. We do not punctuate our speech by saying “comma” or “period,” but we do accomplish the function of those punctuation marks through our pauses and our intonation. Thus, “you’re going to bed” said with rising intonation would be heard as a question whereas if it were uttered without this intonation pattern it would be heard as a statement or comm
