The English language is around 87% phonetically consistent
It’s that remaining 13% that gives everybody fits.
But its also why the most effective method of teaching reading and spelling is by using Phonics. Once you’ve got the majority percentage down pat then the rest kind of sticks out like a sore thumb as the target for rote memorization.
The problem was that for so many years the American system abandoned Phonics and replaced it with the “Look-Say” method. Remember the whole “See Spot run. Run, Spot, run. Run, run, run.” Nonsense?
Finally they came back to their senses and Phonics made a comeback.
But millions of adults who were children of that era are left with the frustration engendered by having to learn each word as a separate entity as if it had no relationships to others.
Asian languages which use separate characters for each word have to do that from necessity.
But English has a perfectly good alphabet and the relationships of words to it and each other was bypassed for way too long.
No wonder people think English is a total mess. Actually only 13% of it is a mess (which at least makes it more manageable than a total mess :)