What are the benefits of phonetics?

Question asked at WikiAnswers

Here are the benefits of phonetic transcription:

* Phonetic transcription shows you the differences between words. Sometimes, it is difficult to tell if two words have the same sound or different sounds just by listening to recordings. For people from non-English-speaking countries, two quite different English sounds may sound the same! The written pronunciation shows you the truth — if two words are transcribed with the same symbol (e.g. @ or Ou), you know they are pronounced with the same sound.
* Phonetic transcription helps you correct your mistakes. Often, you pronounce an English word the wrong way, but you don't notice it. You may hear the correct pronunciation in recordings, but you may not even realize it is different from your pronunciation. When you read what sounds there are in the word, you can realize you've been pronouncing the word incorrectly.