It would be a good idea for you to learn phonetic spelling because this can help with pronunciation. In a good dictionary, the phonetic spelling is given, along with an indication of stress in words of more than one syllable.
This word shows the necessity for such spelling, because the word is pronounced in exactly the same way as another word, and without the phonetic spelling, you might think the pronunciation was different. The other word is
flower, of course!
flour /fl
aʊə/
flower /fl
aʊə/
Both words have two syllables, and the second syllable is stressed.
/f/ as in
fast/l/ as in
leg/aʊ/ (the diphong) as in
cow/ə/ (the weak vowel) as in
computer (/kəmpju:tə/)
/fl/ as in
flight/aʊə/ as in
our/fl aʊə/
/fl
aʊə/
flour or
flowerEDIT:
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/help/phonetics.htm