Pronunciation Blues

I suffer from what I suspect is a common malady among avid readers: the vocabulary I know in print is much larger than the vocabulary I regularly hear or speak. Thus when I do use a word that I have only seen in print, I don’t always know how to pronounce it, and on some occasions, have embarrassed myself by mispronouncing it. Sometimes the word originates in a non-English language, and sometimes it is just not a widely spoken word. Unfortunately, in English, unlike in some other languages such as Spanish, spelling doesn’t give a clear and logical indication of pronunciation. I have recently discovered pronunciation guides online, so if I know ahead of time that I want to use a word, perhaps in a conference paper, I can look it up and listen to the correct pronunciation. But if the word occurs to me spontaneously in conversation, and I am unsure of the pronunciation, I have two strategies, depending on my audience. Most often I just think of a different word to substitute. But if I am with friends, I may say “XXXX” (my guess at how the word is pronounced) and then say airily “or however that word is pronounced.”