English language does have phonetic symbols but it is not considered phonetic language, however it might be phonetic partially. Why is it so?

I think this because it concentrates on the spelling of the words and not the sounds of them as there are so many words that have the same sounds like if you say hair phonaticly it could mean "hair" or "her" and that may cause confusion.

Arabic for example is a phonetic language. You read what you write. A letter has one sound and can not have aother. You could say Arabic is writen in phonetic symbols (but it's not). English is not a phonetic language because what you write is not always what it is sounds like. Maybe that's because English has so many words from other languages. For example, the word 'genre' (originally French) is pronounced in a way learners of English would find confusing because the sounds the letters make together are very different from the sounds they should be making or the sounds they stand for. I hope it's useful. I think I have written enough. :)

Coz most of the words in English are sight words. One needs to have a proper knowledge of the words and their pronunciation to read them correctly.