How important is spelling?

If there's one thing that makes a language teacher scream in exasperation and apply lots of red pen to children's work, it's poor spelling.  There is a big emphasis on correct spelling (and punctuation and grammar - SPaG) elsewhere in the curriculum, so we should expect careful spelling in languages too.

However, if we look at the Making and Marking Progress document for Key Stage 2, we read the following:

"Spelling may not always be completely accurate but your meaning will be clear."

So just how important is spelling?

Here are the results of a #mfltwitterati crowd source about common spelling mistakes:

FRENCH:
nerf	neuf
beucoup / beacoup	beaucoup
familie	famille
blue	bleu
souer	soeur
jamie	j’aime
interestant	intéressant
compains	copains
chevaux	cheveux
fréré	frère
collage	collège
je mapple / jem’appele etc	je m’appelle
trios	trois
mecredi	mercredi
jabeet	j’habite
vancances	vacances
SPANISH:
abburido	aburrido
me enchanta	me encanta
anos	años
viente	veinte
mardre	madre
GERMAN
Ich speile	Ich spiele
Wochende	Wochenende
Fruende	Freunde

Some questions:

• Are there more French examples because French is harder to spell than Spanish and German?
• What do the exemplified errors tell us about what the students find difficult about the languages?
• How much is English to blame?
• How much are spell checkers responsible for?  (see above image!)

I would be interested to hear your thoughts, and of course any other cracking examples.