I know that there is at least one language we can pronounce based on the word's form (Vietnamese) which means that once you know how to write it, you will also know how to pronounce it.
But in English, are English words like Chinese words, meaning that we can't pronounce the word based on its form and we must know the sound of the word in order to pronounce it correctly ? (like Pinyin for Chinese). For instance, the word read
you must know it's sound is /ri:d/
in order to pronounce correctly.
read
you must know it's sound is/ri:d/
in order to pronounce correctly. So is that in English, do we indeed have to know the sound of the word in order to pronounce it right ? Can't we just look atread
and pronounce it with some rules ?