You haven't learned pinyin properly. Anyone who learns the utmost basics of pinyin and the language will not stumble on any of this stuff. You sound like you are relying on the phonetics too much. You just need to get the phonetic rules, and then whatever system you are using, you will know the sound in your head and match it to what is on the page. ye and de are super easy to distinguish as two things that have two different rules (read about initials and finals, if you need more info, here for example: http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/pinyin-rules.php)