Difficulties of phonetics are:

(1) Multiplicity of sounds to be produced, including many sounds and
combinations that do not occur in the language of the learner.

(2) Variation of accent, and of sounds expressed by the same letter.

These difficulties are both eliminated in Esperanto.

(1) Relatively few sounds are adopted into the language, and only such
as are common to nearly all languages. For instance, there are only five
full vowels and three[1] diphthongs, which can be explained to every
speaker in terms of his own language. All the modified vowels, closed
"u's" and "e's," half tones, longs and shorts, open and closed vowels,
etc., which form the chief bugbear in correct pronunciation, and often
render the foreigner unintelligible—all these disappear.

[1]Omitting the rare _eÅ­_. _ej_ and _uj_ are merely simple vowels
plus consonantal _j_ (= English _y_).

(2) There is no variation of accent or of sound expressed by the
same letter. The principle "one letter, one sound"[1] is adhered to
absolutely. Thus, having learned one simple rule for accent (always on
the last syllable but one), and the uniform sound corresponding to each
letter, no mistake is possible.

[1]The converse—"one sound, one letter"—is also true, except that
the same sound is expressed by _c_ and _ts_. (See Appendix C.)

Contrast this with English. Miss Soames gives twenty-one ways of writing