All the pronunciation rules 100% accuracy

[Phidze]

Hello there,
It may sound a bit strange but I have to find, in order to complete a project, all the rules of pronunciation of all the letters of the alphabet. I mean, for example the letter a, if it is before a double consonants, such as “ff” or before “ck” or a even single vowel, has the sound [a], but when it is before a ‘f’, ‘s’ or ‘th’ it has the sound [ah]

This is actually far more complicated, even only for the a letter, I have currently sources as A - Teflpedia but it is not really understandable because sometimes they say there is some exceptions but they do not tell which, and I HAVE to be 100% accuracy.

So I came here asking you if you have any advice for my situation in order to find all the exact rules.
Thanks!

PS: as you can see English is not my native language so please excuse my mistakes

[Torsten]

Hi Phidze, thank you for joining our community and sharing your project details. As far as I understand, you want to create a system that shows how each letter of English is pronounced depending on the context and the combination in which it occurs. In other words, you want to create a transcription tool that produces a phonetic transcription of any word or phrase. Is this correct or am I missing something? Maybe @JadeJoddle can help?

haɪ Phidze, θæŋk juː fɔː ˈʤɔɪnɪŋ ˈaʊə kəˈmjuːnɪti ænd ˈʃeərɪŋ jɔː ˈprɒʤɛkt ˈdiːteɪlz. æz fɑːr æz aɪ ˌʌndəˈstænd, juː wɒnt tuː kri(ː)ˈeɪt ə ˈsɪstɪm ðæt ʃəʊz haʊ iːʧ ˈlɛtər ɒv ˈɪŋglɪʃ ɪz prəˈnaʊnst dɪˈpɛndɪŋ ɒn ðə ˈkɒntɛkst ænd ðə ˌkɒmbɪˈneɪʃən ɪn wɪʧ ɪt əˈkɜːz. ɪn ˈʌðə wɜːdz, juː wɒnt tuː kri(ː)ˈeɪt ə trænsˈkrɪpʃən tuːl ðæt prɒdjuːsɪz ə fəʊˈnɛtɪk trænsˈkrɪpʃən ɒv ˈɛni wɜːd ɔː freɪz. ɪz ðɪs kəˈrɛkt ɔːr æm aɪ ˈmɪsɪŋ ˈsʌmθɪŋ? ˈmeɪbiː Jade Joddle kæn hɛlp?

[Phidze]

Thank you for answering that fast,

this is EXACTLY what I am trying to do, I will just use the Phonetic Respelling instead of the IPA Pronunciations (which do not have much difference for what I have seen) for programming reasons (the symbols.)

[Torsten]

So, you want to create a software tool that can create the phonetic transcription of written texts?

[NearlyNapping]

You would need a long look up table for all the exceptions.

How would you differentiate between good and food?

Even worse, how would you differentiate between?

though
thought
through
bough
rough
cough

Even worse:

How would you differentiate between?

slough
slough
slough

You would have to go through the dictionary to check the pronunciation of every word to see of it follows the rules.

[Torsten]

aɪ θɪŋk wʌn kʊd juz ə tɛkˈnɑləʤi laɪk ʤi-pi-ti-3 tu dɪˈvɛləp ə chatbot ðæt ˌɔtəˈmætɪkli prəˈdusəz ðə fəˈnɛtɪk ˌtrænˈskrɪpʃən ʌv ˈɛni ˈrɪtən tɛkst ænd ˈɑdiˌoʊ ˈɪnˌpʊt. frʌm ðə ˈmɪljənz ʌv rəˈkɔrdz ðə ˈsɪstəm prəˈdusəz, wʌn kʊd ðɛn dəˈtɜrmən ðə ˈpætərnz ʌv ˈmɑdərn ˈspoʊkən ˈɪŋglɪʃ, sɪns ðɛr ɑr noʊ “hɑrd rulz” wɛn ɪt kʌmz tu prəˌnʌnsiˈeɪʃən ænd fəˈnɛtɪks.

I think you could use a technology like GPT-3 to develop a chatbot that automatically produces the phonetic transcription of any written text and audio input. From the millions of records the system produces, one could then determine the patterns of modern spoken English, since there are no “hard rules” when it comes to pronunciation and phonetics.

[JadeJoddle]

There are many different English accents, therefore the rules of pronunciation are not set in stone to make a list of rules like this.

You could make a set of rules for a particular accent, e.g. standard British English, but even then you will be surprised how many exceptions there are.

I made a course that contains all of the main spelling patterns in English; the project took me 2 years to complete.

This is a huge task unless you copy the list from somewhere.

[Phidze]

Thank you for answering me,
I will look for the GPT-3 tech, and I got some new ideas tho,
But yes I think I see how huge this task will be, I just need to think a little bit more about it