[gurkendoktor]

> I'm also told that this is true of German.

Not quite. We have a bunch of French loanwords that are confusing to spell, some sounds that blend into each other (eu/äu, e/ä, ch/g), we pronounce a 'd' like a 't' at the ent of a wort (so Germans are perpetually confused if it's spelled Standard or Standart), and our markers for whether a vowel is long or short are pretty inconsistent.