Pronounciation of o

There are no firm rules. It has different pronunciations (in standard BrE) in each of these

cot, cone, come, prove, woman, women, work, pork, synod, boy, cow.

Are there any rules if we narrow it down further to the following pronunciations, especially when to pronounce with the diphthong as in the alphabet?
Long O /?:/
Short O /?/
The diphthong as in the alphabet /??/

If you want to really narrow it down, you might say that there are essentially only two basic pronunciations, the long o and the short o.

The long o is represented by words like: phone, tone, groan, moan, cone, oh, no, etc.

And the short o is represented by words like: lot, got, tot, mom, Tom, not, forgot (first o is long, second is short), etc.

That should get you

Anonymous/??/

o-e. tone, home, phone, dote, code, rose, poke, ...
oa. soak, foal, coast, loan, foam, boat, ...
ol. folk, yolk
ow. show, mow, crow, throw, blow, know, ...
o. no, so, ...
oe. toe, foe, ...

Anonymous/?:/

au. auk, taut, applaud, author, ...
au-e. cause, pause, gauze, ...
al. tal

CalifJimAnonymous/?:/au. auk, taut, applaud, author, ...au-e. cause, pause, gauze, ...al. talk, walk, chalk, ...augh. taught, caught, ...ough. ought, thought, fought, ...aw. yawn, lawn, saw, law, claw, hawk, ...Anonymous/?/o. got, hot, hop, shop, off, lock, ..._______________These are most of them. They are all British pronunciations.

These are different from

AnonymousIf you want to really narrow it down, you might say that there are essentially only two basic pronunciations, the long o and the short o.

Thank you for your input but i want to learn to speak proper English.

One way you can be sure of the pronunciation of a word is to use one of the many dictionaries at www.onelook.com that have an audio version of the word.

Normally it depends whether it is open or close syllable, if it is open syllable like in words zero, go, open, show, toe it is pronouced with diphthong /??/. if closed syllable like in words pot, got, hot then it is pronounced with short /?/.