[RightWhale]

English spelling is difficult partly because it is a built up language. It seems like every local language that got steamrollered by Latin and then French managed to keep much of the native language while incorporating Latin and Romance. Spelling is weird partly because many of the words came from different languages with their own standards of spelling. The French also complain about this: why is ll pronounced y? Whether to use -able or -ible depends on what language the root came from.

[Verginius Rufus]

English tends to keep words in the spelling of the language they were borrowed from, or something close to it. The -able and -ible endings are often on words of Latin origin. The endings -ant and -ent are another source of spelling confusion. Sometimes it helps if you've had Latin and can remember which conjugation the Latin verb belongs to that the English word is derived from (to know how to spell the English word).

It would theoretically be possible to change to a completely phonetic system for English (by creating additional characters) but that would be far too much trouble for most people who already know how to read English.

Theodore Roosevelt believed in simplified spelling and had a list of revised spellings he wanted everyone to adopt...and got nowhere with it.