Letters Suck At Representing Sound

I love the English language. I do. I am usually the first one to tout its power and success. However, it is far from perfect. It has a number of issues, and anybody who ignores or denies English's problems is delusional.

What I really hate is when people say that English is easier to read than Chinese because the letters tell you how to pronounce words. No they don't. Not consistently. 

There are 26 letters in the alphabet. Many letters, if not all, have multiple pronunciations. Some letters have the same pronunciation. Some letters when placed together completely make a new sound. Some letters change pronunciation even when another letter is put in the word not even next to each other.

Sometimes two words with different spelling are pronounced exactly the same. Sometimes words can be spelled the same and pronounced differently. 

Simply put, letters suck at representing sound. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is much better at handling sounds with characters, but we don't use it (and it also isn't perfect).

The only way to know how a word is pronounced is to be told how. Once you know enough rules of letters and diphthongs and such, you can sound out many words, but there will always be more that aren't spoken the way it looks and you will need to be taught how it's said. 

Always remember that spoken language came first. Written language is an approximation, and it will always be an approximation of spoken language.