Verified answer

My advice: Ignore phonics. Just memorize the sound of each word separately. If you encounter a word you've never seen before, just do your best. Chances are you'll still be wrong because English is just too messy.

English is a mish-mash of languages collected from over a thousand years. It pulls from too many languages, so there are too many rules, too many exceptions and frankly, most Americans mispronounce things anyways which just makes the whole system that more confusing.

So yes. Vintage is pronounced like "vintige" but spelled "vintage." There's probably a linguistic explanation for it, but unless you're a linguist, it's not worth learning about. Just memorize it and move on.