There are many people that can help you, in many ways, to learn how to pronounce English words, and, even though listening, singing and reading lyrics to music is also a fantastic way, it is a labour-intensive manner to do so.

I found that comparing the English language to a language that you already speak natively is probably the best way to go.

The first thing that you must take into account is the language of comparison: Since Latin and English are the most used, on a worldwide basis, we will compare the 2 in order to establish rules as to pronouncing English words, or even names, that you have never seen or heard before. It doesn’t work 100% of the time since some words come from Latin-based languages already but it does seem to work the large majority of times.

The first thing to take into account would be the pronunciation of the corresponding vowels:

In Latin-based languages, the pronunciation of the 5 vowels is as follows:
A-ah
E-eh
I-ee
O-oh
U-oo

While the pronunciation of vowels in English are (phonetically to Latin):
A-ei
E-i
I-ai
O-ouh
U-lliu

These pronunciations are what you want to remember when using the following rules:

Rule number 1: Vowels are more powerful since there are only 5 (therefore pronounced as in English).

The “Y” is also pronounced as a vowel sometimes.
Hi=hai
By=bai

Otherwise, the rule of the vowel pronounced and in English, is followed by simply counting the amount of vowels versus the amount of consonants in a word:

More vowels than consonants, or the equal amount of each = English pronunciation

More consonants than vowels in a word = Latin based pronunciation:
Ace=eis (the “ei” rules... as in English)
Act=act (the “ah” rules...as in Latin)

The ending of the verb simply follows the rule of the original pronunciation:
Acing=eising (English = E)
Acting, acted (Latin = L)
Mat (L)
Mate (E)
Matted (L)
Mated (E)
Matting (L)
Mating (E)
Hat (L)
Hate (E)
Cut (L)
Cute (E)
Fat (L)
Fate (E)
Not
Note
Rat
Rate

Especial rule:
If there are two consonants side by side, and they are not push through pronunciations: (pl, br, sp, cr, bl, cl, st, dr, cl, etc...), that is, they are pronounced as if it were only one new word sound; then the rule is that it immediately sounds as in Latin, even if there are an equal amount of vowels to consonants. For example:
Unreal
Alloy

Compare: Famous (feimos) versus Infamous (infamos)

“Famous” is pronounced as in English but “Infamous” is pronounced as in Latin yet the only difference is that in “Infamous” there are two consonants together thereby becoming stronger than normal, thereby reverting to Latin-based pronunciation.

Let’s now look at some push-through words:
Price
Blatant
Crate
Drive
Flavour
Grace
Thrice
State

Notice that they are pronounced as in English, even though there are more consonants than vowels present in the word.

It is also important to note that these rules mainly work with the first part of the word.
Identity
Ideology
Unicorn
Uniform
Versus
Alien
Infinite (NF together)
Understand (ND together)
Alleviate
Excellent
Invention
Endorse

I hope these general rules of pronunciation have helped you. I hope they will continue helping you in the future.

Marcelo Montecinos
Phrazzle Me!