It has a rule or not in letter G?

[Fleur de mort]

Hi all
Could anyone clear to me how can I know If the G letter has rule or something that I can find the difference between the sound of G as in word ( God , Good , Girl ... etc ) and (Gibbet , Gin ,giraffe ..etc)
I need to know .
thanks

[Tdol]

There are many exceptions, but when you have g+e or g+i it is soft and sounds like 'j'.

[Fleur de mort]

What about "Girl" ?
I mean there is no ruls to letter G????

[blahblah]

"Girl" is an exception.

[Anglika]

• If the following letter is ‘E’, ‘I’ or ‘Y’, the pronunciation is said to be “soft”.
• A soft ‘G’ is pronounced ‘j’ as in general, giant, gymnastic, large, energy, intelligible, changing
• If the following letter is anything else - including a space - the pronunciation is termed “hard
• A hard ‘G’ is pronounced ‘g’ as in golf, pig, running, great, gum, fragrant, grasp, glut, progress

Exceptions = gear, get, gelding, give, girl, gift, tiger

To understand the exceptions, you need to look at the etymology of the words. Online Etymology Dictionary

[florr0]

• If the following letter is ‘E’, ‘I’ or ‘Y’, the pronunciation is said to be “soft”.
• A soft ‘G’ is pronounced ‘j’ as in general, giant, gymnastic, large, energy, intelligible, changing
• If the following letter is anything else - including a space - the pronunciation is termed “hard
• A hard ‘G’ is pronounced ‘g’ as in golf, pig, running, great, gum, fragrant, grasp, glut, progress

Exceptions = gear, get, gelding, give, girl, gift, tiger

To understand the exceptions, you need to look at the etymology of the words. Online Etymology Dictionary

indeed, good explanation

[Fleur de mort]

Anglika
Always you are the angel
thanks a lot
but could you give me another website because this one is hidden in my country .
thanks million

[Anglika]

Both Dictionary.com and Merriam-Webster Online provide the etymology of words

[Fleur de mort]

Both Dictionary.com and Merriam-Webster Online provide the etymology of words

Thanks Anglika thanks million

[Buddhaheart]

Additionally, one might want to observe the following generalizations (rules):

1. If ‘e’ follows ‘g’ and it appears at the end of a word or syllable, it’s pronounced /¥/ in loan words like ‘garage’, ‘rouge’. It may also be pronounced as /dz/ as in the above examples and those cited by Anglika & others.

2. Retain the hard ‘g’ even if ‘er’, ‘ing’ or ‘y’ is added to the word.
Ex. digger, bagging, baggy.
Exceptions: exaggerate, suggest.

3. The ‘g’ at the end of a word is usually represented by the hard sound.
Ex. drug, dig, big.

4. When ‘d’ is followed by ‘ge’, the ‘d’ is silent.
Ex. bridge, badge, ledge.

5. At the beginning of a word or syllable, ‘gh’ usually is represented by the hard sound but silent if it’s at the end.
Ex. ghost, ghastly; though, dough.

6. ‘g’ is hard before ‘ui’, ‘ue’ & ‘ua’ and the ‘u’ is silent but it may also be pronounced as /gw/.
Ex. guilt, guess, language, linguist.

7. ‘gue’ at the end of a word is usually hard and 'ue' is silent.
Ex. plague, dialogue, vague.
Exceptions: dengue

8. ‘g’ is silent in ‘gm’ or ‘gn’.
Ex. gnaw, gnome; assign, campaign.

There’re of course many other rules to be formulated and they’ll always be exceptions.