I think French and English spellings are complicated for different reasons: given its pronunciation, the spelling of an English word is generally easy to guess

I think French and English spellings are complicated for different reasons: given its pronunciation, the spelling of an English word is generally easy to guess (and I insist on generally: I needed the automatic corrector to tell me that I spelled 'pronunciation' wrongly at first), while in French it will not be straightforward; on the other hand, a French word is easy to pronounce when one sees it in writing, and in English it's not the case (like, the word 'live' can be pronounced in two ways).