How "ghoti" spells fish or why French people can't pronounce English

There is a joke among those trying to learn the English language. It goes thus: how do you pronounce "ghoti"? The answer, of course, is that the "gh" is an "f" sound (as in "enough"), the "o" is an "i" sound (as in "women") and the "ti" is a "sh" sound (as in "commotion"). "ghoti", therefore is pronounced "fish".

I guess the point is that English is a bastard language. French is considered a grammatical nightmare and Italian is impossibly difficult to pick up even at a basic level. By comparison English is a walk in the park. However, despite being one of the easiest languages to learn as a beginner it is the hardest language to progress to the level of a native speaker in. While Europe is leagues ahead of the UK in linguistic expertise, how many Europeans could pass a native English speakers? Certainly, the number of French mother tongue Europeans who can do so is a mere handful, but the same applies to Italians and Spaniards (perhaps the only exception is the Germans). As a bastard language with only a paradoxical set of rules to govern it's pronunciation the only way to really learn to speak like a native is to learn to feel the language and even then, you'd better be certain you don't mix up your Liverpudlian accent with Australian. I guess it's no wonder that the French can't pronounce English, I mean who can?