Czech Vowels (the approximate pronunciation in the parentheses)

A (up, butter) vana, pata, basa, vata

Á (father, car) káva, máma, táta, mává, banán

E (pet, set, get) nese, vede, bere, les, pes, den

É (air, hair, pair) léto, mléko, zelené, celé

Ě (yes, yesterday) věda, světlé, pět, devět, měla, oběd

I (sit, pick, lip) pil, pila, list, klid, (Czech i is called iota)

Í (meet, meat, seat) síla, mít, pít, Míla, víla

O (Ontario) okno, voda, doprovod, dolar

Ó (awe,) óda, haló

U (push, put, full) ucho, uzel, koruna, ulice, hluboká

Ú/ů (root, fool, shoot) úsilí, útok, ústa, dům, stůl, stromů, domů

Y (pronounce as i) byl, kyselý, kryla, (Czech y is called ypsilon)

Ý (pronounce as í) mýt, být, krýt, sýry

OU (diphthong - show) koule, boule, fousy, dlouho

AU (diphthong - brown) au! auto, automat

Remember: Czech has two kinds of vowels: short and long.

Czech diacritical marks ΄ (čárka) and ° (kroužek) make a vowel long; kroužek is used exclusively above the vowel u in the middle or at the end of a word (dům, domů).
Another diacritical mark ˇ (háček) is used mostly with consonants. It makes them soft. The only vowel with háček is ě. It can follow the ambiguous consonants b, p, v and m: běda, pět, věta, město. If it follows the hard consonants d, t, n, it transforms them into the soft consonants ď, ť, ň: děkuji, tělo, něco.
The same rule applies to the Czech vowel i (iota); it softens d, t, n into ď, ť, ň: dítě, děti, nic.
If not followed by either ě or iota, ď and ť are written with the apostrophe instead of háček.