English spelling had a bit of a disaster. Spelling got settled over the same time pronunciation was changing, at the same time printers became a thing and people getting something printed had loads of ability to change what would be standard spelling and they liked to show off how much they knew the history of the language by inserting silent letters reminding them of the Latin or Greek root word
Also English has many more vowels than the Latin alphabet so it’s practically impossible to accurately reflect the way a word is said in its spelling and some words got frozen in text just before they changed how they were spoken and others just after so there’s no consistency
IMHO English is easier to learn in the beginning, but gets ridiculous later on. Pronunciation is completely random and makes no sense, vocabulary as well. German pronunciation is probably harder (maybe? The English “th” is a challenge as well!), and articles are stupid. But: once you have a certain level it gets way easier. Pronunciation makes sense, vocabs make sense.
For example, what’s a “plane” supposed to be? Flugzeug (“flying thing”) makes much more sense, even if it’s the first time you read it.
As someone who learnt both German and English as a second language, german was far easier to learn. Atleast the spelling and stuff makes sense.
English spelling had a bit of a disaster. Spelling got settled over the same time pronunciation was changing, at the same time printers became a thing and people getting something printed had loads of ability to change what would be standard spelling and they liked to show off how much they knew the history of the language by inserting silent letters reminding them of the Latin or Greek root word
Also English has many more vowels than the Latin alphabet so it’s practically impossible to accurately reflect the way a word is said in its spelling and some words got frozen in text just before they changed how they were spoken and others just after so there’s no consistency
English spelling is easy!
Just learn which word comes from which language.
Kindergarden. German, you spell the i like in German.
fable. French, you don’t spell every letter
Island. French
pace. Latin, you just spell it like you read it.
English has the problem that it just took words from many other languages and kept their pronunciation.
Which leads to a whole mess of words. Older words seem to have a bit more consistency.
IMHO English is easier to learn in the beginning, but gets ridiculous later on. Pronunciation is completely random and makes no sense, vocabulary as well. German pronunciation is probably harder (maybe? The English “th” is a challenge as well!), and articles are stupid. But: once you have a certain level it gets way easier. Pronunciation makes sense, vocabs make sense.
For example, what’s a “plane” supposed to be? Flugzeug (“flying thing”) makes much more sense, even if it’s the first time you read it.