English has way more vowel sounds than it has vowels.

• jack
• barn
• arena
• ball
• able
• rare

Those are just words where the primary vowel letter is “a”.

The terrible attempt to solve this is by using double letters, but then consistency goes out the window. There’s times when “ea” is a single vowel sound like /rid/ (reed) or /rɛd/ (red). But it can also be /ɛrn/ as in earn, which rhymes with urn and burn. It can be /ˈɡɹeɪt/ as in great, where the “ea” is a diphthong and pronounced like the “a” in grate or vague. Or, for more fun, the two letters can each fully get their own pronunciation like “react” or “theatre”.

We’re really at the “bearn it all down and start over” stage with English. Let’s just all agree to switch to español.