Why is break not rhymed with weak?

Perhaps, one of the main difficulties that we have to face when we decide to take on the challenge to learn English is that of being sure about how the new words we are learning are pronounced.

As a matter of fact, some linguists and teachers says in a funny way that when someones has learnt English, that person has actually mastered two different languages, to wit, the oral English language and the written English language.

It is really frustating for native speakers of languages which are pronounced just the way they are written such as Spanish, Catalan or Italian. In fact, most Spaniards and Italians I have ever met have confessed that at their early learning stages - especially those who were learning English on their own and, hence, with less changes to get some feedback from teachers -, they really got mad at the fact that they spent a lot of time trying to learn by heart the meaning and how to spell words like 'receipt', 'cupboard', or 'Greenwich' and as soon as they put them into practise orally with an English native speaker, they discovered that it was as if they had learnt a different language.

Pronunciation is not always predictable in English. In philological terms, it has a reason: the English we write now became standardised in the XVth and XVIth centuries and it does not reflect the pronunciation changes that the English language have been suffering due to the so-called Great Vowel Shift.

Theoretical explanation and philological reason aside, I think one of the most useful tools to help learners learn how words are pronounced in English is this website: Forvo. As its logo says: 'All the words in the world. Pronounced'. You can look up any word you are not sure about how to pronounce it and immediately you will get as a result that word pronounced by a native speaker. One of the perks of this website is that you will not an automatically generated pronunciation but a man-made pronunciation.

To finish off with this entry topic and as an attempt to leave you astounded, try reading out load the following poem written by Lord Cromer in 1902. I grant you that if you can correctly pronounce every word in this poem, you will undoubtedly be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world.

WHEN THE ENGLISH TONGUE WE SPEAK
When the English tongue we speak
Why is break not rhymed with weak?
Won't you tell me why it's true
We say sew, but also few?
And the maker of a verse
Cannot rhyme his horse with worse?
Beard is not the same as heard,
Cord is different from word,
Cow is cow, low is low,
Shoe is never rhymed with foe.
Think of hose and dose and lose,
And think of goose and yet of choose,
Think of comb and tomb and bomb,
Doll and roll and home and some.
And since pay is rhymed with say,
Why not paid with said I pray?
Think of blood and food and good;
Mould is not pronounced like could.
Why is done, but gone and lone -
Is there any reason known?
To sum it up, it seems to me
That sounds and letters don't agree.


Ok! Ok! Don't beat me up I pray you!! I know it is tough so here's some help...