English is a Crazy Language

Unlike English, Spanish is a language that is very straightforward when it comes to pronunciation.
The way a word is spelled, is exactly how it's pronounced.
No questions asked, no exceptions, no rules about seemingly random letter combinations making a unique sound. (-ought, -tion, -ght, etc)
Nope. Just simple: each vowel only has one sound.

• Unlike English, where, we have 15 sounds for our five vowels.
• Por ejemplo 
• "it" and "live" (as in a broadcast)
• "each" "less"
• "arm" "call"
• "air" "five"
• Two words. One common vowel. Completely different pronounciation. 

Typical question from befuddled student, "How do you know how to pronounce it from just looking at the word?"
My response, "You don't. You memorize."
Unbelievably frustrating for English learners!

• And the ever confusing words that are spelled differently and have entirely different meanings yet are pronounced the exact same way.
• "ate" and "eight"
• "wore" "war" (depending on your accent)
• "where" "wear"
• "right" "write"

Pero, seño, why are they pronouned exactly the same?
I'm sorry but ni idea (I haven't the slightest clue)

• And the even more confusing - words that are spelled the same but mean different things
• "right" "right" ((correct; right/left))
• "mean" and "mean."
• I once found myself asking my sixth grade class "What does mean (as in nasty) mean?" OH man; the looks of confusion I got that day! haha!

All those core issues with the English language aside: there are some mistakes almost every Spaniard is bound to make at one point or another in their English learning process, and it's funny because no matter where you go or who you talk to, the same battle with the vowels is bound to come up eventually! But you can't really blame them with all these complicated rules; no rhyme or reason, and unexplainable, new and different sounds that aren't made in any words in their own language.

The ones that I cannot seem to correct among my  students (elementary school aged as well as adult students)

• "it" is most commonly pronounced as "eat"
• "him" as "heem"
• "live" (as in address) is pronounced as "leave"

Many times it nearly impossible to distinguish between

• t-shirt and teacher (anything with a sh sound, really)
• angry and hungry
• ankle and uncle
• heel and hill
• boat and bus

And the true limitations of sounding like a native English speaker

• the inability to pronounce a y as a yuh (young becomes jung) and
• saying a word that begins with an S without putting an E in front of it: espeek, ehsleep, ehspring, espain
• Then there's the problem that someone, somewhere along the line, told them that fun and funny mean the same thing. (nearly impossible to correct for some reason!)
• And when they mean to say puppy they say poopie! (A sad but giggle worthy mistake)

As an English learner these issues are pivotal to master Speaking.
As a teacher there isn't much more you can do but stand in front of your class of 30 six year olds and slowly draw out an exaaaaaaaaaaaggerated version of each sound and have them repeat over and over: they'll remember how silly you looked and remember the sound you made, while they repeat over and over the funny you made!

(And for all you skeptics out there afraid to look silly and think it would be pointles, just so you know, it totally works! My students can now say "washing machine" like pros (instead of "watching ma-cheen)! And "police station" without adding the [eh]station! I'm so proud of my little ones!!

But in general;

Could the English language get any more obscure?!