As if Polish wasn't hard enough! That pronunciation is very confusing when you learn the language through English, e.g. 'wino' is Polish for 'wine'.

Well it's similar in German and some other languages. In Latin "v" and "u" were the same letter and "w" was introduced to clean up the mess and be specific.

In Polish there's no "v", "u" is always the "oo" sound and "w" is always the "v" sound.

Same with "c"/"k"/"q" mess. In Polish there's no "q", "k" is always the sound in "Cat" and "c" is always the sound in "TZar". Simple. In English you have 3 letters randomly assigned to encode the same 2 sounds in different words.

Regarding "wine" Polish is also closer to latin: https://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/the/latin-word-for-e4fd69b...

Unlike English though, the pronunciation is almost always straightforward and non-ambiguous. The spelling for some sounds can be confusing at first, but once you internalize it, it'll work 99% of the time.

Pronunciation can be challenging but words are spelled in a very consistent manner. There are few exceptions where the word isn't spoken like the letters suggest (for example: zmarznięty).