The English alphabet (see English Alphabet) takes almost no time to memorize — 26 letters, no diacritics. The real challenge is what happens once those letters start forming words.
Unlike alphabets with genuinely new shapes or sounds to master, English's letters are likely already familiar if you're reading this — spend minimal time here and move directly to the actual bottleneck: spelling-to-sound inconsistency.
Maintain a running list of common words that don't follow predictable spelling rules ("said," "was," "one," "though") and drill them specifically — these words appear constantly, so mastering them early has outsized payoff.
While English spelling isn't fully phonetic, it isn't fully random either — certain letter combinations tend to represent certain sounds often enough to be a useful (if imperfect) guide, worth learning as a starting heuristic rather than expecting either total regularity or total chaos.
Reading aloud reveals words whose pronunciation you're actually unsure of despite recognizing them in writing — a useful diagnostic that silent reading hides.
See also the reference page: English Alphabet.
No — 26 letters with no diacritics is genuinely simple to memorize; the real challenge is applying those letters to English's inconsistent spelling-to-sound patterns.
Maintain a dedicated list of common irregularly-spelled words ("said," "was," "one") and drill them specifically as whole units, since they appear constantly and have outsized payoff.
It's imperfect but not fully random — certain letter combinations represent certain sounds often enough to be a useful starting heuristic, even though exceptions are common.
It reveals words whose pronunciation you're actually unsure of despite recognizing them visually — a gap that silent reading can hide.