Phonics help sought: is there a rule for words beginning WA...

[Greythorne]

Looking for some help please!

Some words beginning with 'wa' '[was', 'walk', 'water' etc.] are pronounced with an /or/ sound.
But wafer, wag, wage, wager, have an /ai/ sound.

Is there a rule to explain this, please?

^Mrz
The OED also explains that when referring to writing systems, 'phonetic' means 'having a direct correspondence between symbols and sounds.

We agree that in English there isn't a direct one sound one symbol correspondence
and to most people this means that English spelling is not phonetic.
You added that extra word masha ... one.

There is a direct correspondence between sounds and symbols in English just not a one to one correspondence.

by most people do you mean yourself?

"by most people do you mean yourself?"
I wonder if this is because Masha speaks English as a second language. Maybe if having a 1st language where there is 1:1 correspondence does make it seem odd that it is possible for something to still be phonetic and have a many:1 correspondence?
although having researched (on the internet so not very scientific!) apparently 25% of the world's population speak English with a understandable competancy. 350million as a 1st language and 750million as a second language, so it can't be tooooo hard to learn!

I have actually found Masha's internet lists of words helpful - not because they show there is no pattern, but because it makes it easy to see what patterns there are! (Albeit even if they do often need a bit of rearranging to get there first)

I think it is because masha has her own agenda ... spelling you as U