For example: stead vs. stay,which I'm reading now.
As far as I know,no one ever explain in a more pertinent way, not to say their relationship with the Chinese counterpart.
These methods are not dead formula,though, mainly because Chinese is more chaotic,especially its pronounciation as we know. I may say my analysis may cover atleast 2/3 of the words, yet if lucky in the right words, its correctness is in great majority, to say an English word has many Chinese words to explain it.