What phonetic meaning does the letter "h" carry when writing English? Especially with words like "honest" and "while". If adding a single letter at the end of a word changes the pronunciation of everything before it, it's not unlike adding a single stroke to a radical that changes the pronunciation of the whole kanji.
In other words, if you need to read the whole word in order to know how to pronounce it (and there are plenty of English examples in the aforelinked video), then, by definition, you're not doing anything remotely phonetic.
In other words, if you need to read the whole word in order to know how to pronounce it (and there are plenty of English examples in the aforelinked video), then, by definition, you're not doing anything remotely phonetic.