
Are you alright with the International Phonetic Alphabet? That might save some trouble...
I've heard of it, but confess I do not know it well enough to use it; stuck with double Dutch...
Here is an example of what I think may be a good example of hearing only the sounds you already know:
- In Swahili, a photograph is known as a 'picha' and a flat tire as a 'puncha'. If you think how the words 'picture' and 'puncture' sound if you do not know how they are written, these are pretty accurate (to my Dutch ears posh British English may sound just so

).
It gets more interesting if you know that 'ch' in Swahili is interpreted as in English, i.e. as in 'church' (their vowels do not follow English rules: they are normal

). So perhaps the words entered Swahili in an oral/aural form and were only later written down fololowing largely English conventions.
- In Dutch and English the animal is known as krokodil / crocodile; in Italian and Spanish it is cocodrilo; who turned the letters around?
- In Dutch the fish is known as a 'kabeljauw' (~cah-buhl-yow), but in Portuguese it is a 'bacalhau' and in Italian a 'baccala'; who turned the letters around? (It's a cod)