There really are no "rules" for the articulation of sounds. It's more about features such as place of articulation (where is the sound made), manner of articulation (type of sound), voicing (voice on/off). It's a bit complex to discuss in this medium. Standard American English contains speech sounds that are not in many other languages and vice versa. There are various regional & cultural differences that affect sound production within the US as well. If you are not a native speaker of Standard American English and are looking to improve your speech production, you might want to work with a speech-language pathologist (otherwise known as a speech therapist) who specializes in accent modification. If you want to learn more about this area, you can research topics such as speech science, linguistics, and phonology.

If you are searching for rules for spelling which in turn requires pronounciation of a word in English, that's yet another area of language & its production. Many times you are able to spell phonetically in English, but then again, there are "sight words" which you must remember as a whole both for spelling & pronouncing.

Please refer to these links for American English pronounciation:

http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronunc-soundsipa.htm

http://www.ling.hf.ntnu.no/ipa/full/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_phonetic_alphabet

And to these links for spelling rules:

http://esl.about.com/library/weekly/aaspelling_rules_a.htm

http://www.iscribe.org/english/spell.html

http://www.englishclub.com/writing/spelling.htm

http://www.studygs.net/spelling.htm

That is the most horrible problem of the western hemisphere.
You have to learn every word: one by one.
English should be eliminated for that. Brrrrr.

This website has all the pronunciations:
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/english.htm
and gives links to other websites.

You are asking a crazy question and a very intersting one. English is not a phonetic language ans so the rule vary. They change and do not follow a set of strict rules.

The short answer is that there are no hard and fast rules. Look at these examples:


1.)
FISH: F = the "f"" sound
PHILOSOPHY: PH = the "f" sound
ENOUGH: GH = the "f" sound

2.)

Read a book today. (REEEEEED)
He read a book yesterday. (RED)

3.)
cough = cawwf
tough = tuff

And read this crazy poem: Little Red Riding Hood

You can see it and listen online at: http://www.exploratorium.edu/exhibits/ladle/

Ladle Rat Rotten Hut

Wants pawn term, dare worsted ladle gull hoe lift wetter murder inner ladle cordage, honor itch offer lodge dock florist. Disk ladle gull orphan worry ladle cluck wetter putty ladle rat hut, an fur disk raisin pimple colder Ladle Rat Rotten Hut.

Wan moaning, Rat Rotten Hut's murder colder inset, "Ladle Rat Rotten Hut, heresy ladle basking winsome burden barter an shirker cockles. Tick disk ladle basking tutor cordage offer groin-murder hoe lifts honor udder site offer florist. Shaker lake! Dun stopper laundry wrote! An yonder nor sorghum-stenches, dun stopper torque wet strainers!"

"Hoe-cake, murder," resplendent Ladle Rat Rotten Hut, an tickle ladle basking an stuttered oft. Honor wrote tutor cordage offer groin-murder, Ladle Rat Rotten Hut mitten anomalous woof. "Wail, wail, wail!" set disk wicket woof, "Evanescent Ladle Rat Rotten Hut! Wares are putty ladle gull goring wizard ladle basking?"

"Armor goring tumor groin-murder's," reprisal ladle gull. "Grammar's seeking bet. Armor ticking arson burden barter an shirker cockles."

"O hoe! Heifer blessing woke," setter wicket woof, butter taught tomb shelf, "Oil tickle shirt court tutor cordage offer groin-murder. Oil ketchup wetter letter, an den - O bore!"

Soda wicket woof tucker shirt court, an whinney retched a cordage offer groin-murder, picked inner widow, an sore debtor pore oil worming worse lion inner bet. Inner flesh, disk abdominal woof lipped honor bet an at a rope. Den knee poled honor groin-murder's nut cup an gnat-gun, any curdled dope inner bet.

Inner ladle wile, Ladle Rat Rotten Hut a raft attar cordage, an ranker dough belle. "Comb ink, sweat hard," setter wicket woof, disgracing is verse. Ladle Rat Rotten Hut entity bet rum an stud buyer groin-murder's bet.

"O Grammar!" crater ladle gull, "Wood bag icer gut! A nervous sausage bag ice!"

"Battered lucky chew whiff, doling," whiskered disk ratchet woof, wetter wicket small.

"O Grammar, water bag noise! A nervous sore suture anomolous prognosis!"

"Battered small your whiff," insert a woof, ants mouse worse waddling.

"O Grammar, water bag mousy gut! A nervous sore suture bag mouse!"

Daze worry on-forger-nut gulls lest warts. Oil offer sodden, thoroughing offer carvers an sprinkling otter bet, disk curl and bloat-thursday woof ceased pore Ladle Rat Rotten Hut an garbled erupt.

Mural: Yonder nor sorghum stenches shut ladle gulls stopper torque wet strainers.

There are too many rules to explain here and many of them have exceptions, for example "gh" can sound like "f", as in tough, "o" sometimes sounds like a soft "i" as in women", and "ti" is pronounced as "s" as in caution. Different geographical areas will also pronounce words differently (i.e. Boston is pronounced Bastin in New England and Harvard is "havad"). You could actually spell "fish" "ghoti" with all the exceptions to the rule

The amount of rules is horrendous. Just to give you an idea, the letter "s" has three sounds (sun, is, sure), each vowel has 5 intensities (long, short, schwa, silent but affecting others, silent with no effect), plus vowels are changed near strong consonants like "r" and "l," and there are other letter combinations with 2 or more sounds.

English is like this because it is actually a mix of several different languages. The different spellings are from the languages the words originally came from.

For example, "ch" in words from northern Europe makes that expected "ch" sound like in "chair" or "church."
"Ch" in words from southern Europe make the "sh" sound like in "machine."
"Ch" in words from ancient Greek makes the "k" sound like in "echo," "school."

Here are some sites with more information:

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/esl/eslstudent.html

http://cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba/phon/phon.spel.html

http://www.rmlearning.com/dyslexia.htm

If you dare to enter the world of Phonetics, check out http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronunc-soundsipa.htm , and it has great comparisons for phonetic pronunciation of English words, and individual consonants and vowels. Good luck, and gimme the 10!

Peace
Lithobid

Dictionary. Buy one and read it.

Buy a dictionary and a grammar book......or go back to elementary school.

it depends on where the vowel is used, so try to read the phonetic alphabet of your dictionary. if yours don't have one, you can buy a newer one, lol.

have an online dictionary site but it's in turkish, but you can write the word in the text box and search for it's meaning in turkish, english and german. and if you subscribe, for free, you can listen the english pronunciation of the words.

the address is;http://www.seslisozluk.com

hope it works for you