Linguistic efforts

A few days ago, my friends and I decided to try an unfamiliar type of cuisine. We visited a restaurant located in the north of Houston. When I opened the menu I was surprised to notice some singuilarities. Previous my visit, I have always encountered "bilingual" menus. In other words, if the restaurant was offering any type of ethnic food, the menu would give out the name of the dish in the language of the country from which the dish originated and then translated it into English- if possible. The menu in this restaurant was indeed bilingual; it had the names of the dishes in both English and Spanish. What got my attention was that in addition to the translation was what seemed like an imitation of a phonetic alphabet. This imitation tried to reproduce Spanish pronunciations in English.

Although these efforts do not compete with the IPA, they are worth of respect. I was glad to notice people's appreciation of other languages, and the tolerance for those who can't speak one's language.