Usual Pronunciation

English has no rules for spelling or pronunciation, but there are some strong tendencies that may help us guess what the most probable pronunciation of a word is. I will tell you here the most important ones, but don't forget that you will find many exceptions to these rules.

This may be useful for consultation but, please, don't try to memorize it, it would be useless since there are so many exceptions. To pronounce English correctly you have to find out the pronunciation of every single new word when you learn it.

	SPELLING	Usual Sounds	EXAMPLES	less common	EXAMPLES
	A		sat, marry, hand, ran, cat radio, case, page, fate, mate		father, bath, dance, cast, fast
	AR		artist, car, park, start, far, charm		AR+vowel: care, stare, Mary
	AIR		air, chair, fair, stair, hair, fairy
A	WA		watch, what, want, quantity, quality		walk, water, wall, war, warm
	AU/AW		Paul, caught, fault, cause, daughter, saw, lawn, law
	AL		all, call, fall, ball, tall, salt, bald, false		pal, calendar, balance
	AI/AY		rain, paid, day, away
	E		egg, editor, bet, went, send, pest		English, pretty, before
	EE		sleep, deep, meet, cheese, keep, teen
	EER		beer, cheer, steer, eery
E	EA		read, eat, tea, meat, speak, breathe		bread, health, ready
	EAR		near, ear, dear, fear, beard, clear		pear, wear, bear
	ER (stressed)		person, verb, prefer, certain
	EW	/ju:/	new, few, sewerage, knew
	EI/EY		receive, ceiling, perceive, key
	I		if, film, his, pistol, risk fine, mine, pile, pilot, child
	IE		field, piece, niece
I	IGH		high, light, fight, might
	IR (stressed)		first, girl, stir
	IRE		fire, pyre, tired, Ireland
	O		bottle, clock, pot, dog so, ago, home, cold, post		son, love, come, London
	OO		good, book, look food, cool, pool
	OOR		door, floor, poor
	OR		horse, port, more, before
	WOR (stressed)		work, worse, word, worm, world
O	WO		worry, wonder, won woman, wolf		woke, won't, wove
	OA		boat, coast, coat, road, coal, oak
	OU/OW		house, out, found, brown, how, town		low, snow, know, soul
	OUR/OWR		hour, our, sour, flower, power
	OI/OY		boy, boil, joy, toy, voice
	OUGHT		bought, brought, ought
	U	/ju:/	student, ambulance, cute cup, uncle, funny, us		blue, June, flute put, sugar
U	UR (stressed)		turn, fur, spur
	UR + vowel		pure, cure, curious, mature
	UI		fruit, juice, suit

 

All these vowels and vowel combinations are often pronounced with a Schwa () if they are in a non-stressed syllable, so I don't give any examples of this sound here because it is unnecessary.