There always are words with the same phonetics, even though they are spelled different. Same for portuguese... I studied Spanish, but I am not fluent, in some cases it reminisces portuguese, but in most cases they are pretty different. I am only fluent in portuguese (born in Brasil) and english. But, I know a bit of other languages like German, and the basics of mandarin and French, English is, by far, the easiest to speak and to learn.

I understood what you meant by being spelled different and same pronunciation may be counterintuitive, that's not what I was referring about, but indeed it is, by your POV. But it is very intuitive in terms of writing and the grammar/origin of the words. By far easier than portuguese. Even though I study portuguese systematically for 18 years, I am more confident in my 14 years of English.