Dear anyone,
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Hi, I'm new to Hebrew and love it for the etymology and history.
I am hoping for an explanation to the method of determining which letter to use when they are pronounced basically the same.
Thanks!
Now I steal one of the top comments ( by @nathanvalleymusic )
as a native hebrew speaker who grew up rarely writing and had to learn individual words at a later age, i came up with a few strategies for these irregularities (which are valid at least in native hebrew words)
1) alef/ayin (word-initially or medially): unfortunately, this one is guesswork. try alef though, it's slightly more common
2) alef/ayin/he (word-finally): he is waaay more common than alef. word-final alef is usually only found when it is part of the root or in aramaic loanwords. word-final ayin makes an extra /a/ sound after the final vowel, so unless the final vowel is /a/, you can tell if it's an ayin (for example, /yo'de.a/ is spelled <יודע>, not <יודה>
3) soft bet/vav: if /v/ appears word-initially, it's written with a vav. if it appears word-finally, it's probably a bet
4) hard kaf/kuf: if /k/ appears word-finally, it's written with a kuf (except some arabic loanwords and some acronyms)
5) soft kaf/khet: if /x/ appears word-initially, it's written with a khet. also, word-final khet adds an /a/ before it (like ayin). this way, you can differentiate between /o're.ax/ <אורח> and /'orex/ <אורך>
6) samekh/sin: samekh is much more common. if you have to guess, guess samekh
7) tet/tav: mostly guesswork, but affixes with /t/ are written with tav. the only case in which /t/ in an affix is written with a tet is in special cases in the hitpa'el stem in which tav becomes tet
it's hellish, but you learn to get by hope this helps!
L1 
Advanced beginner 
hope this helps!