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十年前の話
I'm not sure how 前 is supposed to be read in constructs like these. Is it safe to assume that because 十年｛じゅうねん｝ is 音読み then I should use the whole thing as じゅうんえんぜん (IME is returning both じゅうねんぜん じゅうねんまえ as 十年前). Am I completely wrong? This is probably very basic knowledge but somehow the answer eludes me.
I've never (yet) heard or seen 前 used with さき 音 but my Japanese experience is miniscule and it's included in dictionaries so I included it here just to be safe.
よろしくお願いします
十年前 is じゅうねんまえ.
The reading 前【さき】 is rather rare and not used much these days. Also, some newer dictionaries such as the 明鏡国語辞典 do not even list this reading. Just because a fancy kanji is used for a word does not necessarily imply any significant change in meaning. 言う, 云う, 曰う, 謂う, and 道う are all いう and mean pretty much almost the same, but 言う is a lot more common.
前【ぜん】 is used mainly in compound words 前進, 事前, 前代. As as a prefix it means "former" or "previous": 前局長, 前世紀.
前【まえ】 is used on its own, such as in テレビの前に座る. And like a suffix for nouns meaning "earlier" (一時間前) or "in front of" (駅前, 広場前).
Part of a dictionary entry:
まえ【前】
《名》 (=noun)
①体・顔・目・物の正面 が向いている方向。
「前を向いて歩く」
⑨基準となる時間より以前の時間。
「今から3年前の話だ」「それは結婚する前こことだった」
まえ has got several derived senses, but I omit them here as this question is not about the meaning of まえ. It is used in the expressions 一人前【いちにんまえ】 and 半人前【はんにんまえ】 as well.
Concerning the combination of different readings:
The rule of thumb that words are read either ON-ON or KUN-KUN applies mainly to individual words. And it's at most a tendency for compound words. It's got many exceptions as well.
I don't think you should think of 十年前 as one word. It works almost like a suffix, you can add it to many other words: (X)(Y)前, with X some number and Y some unit. You can also talk about 3日前, 6ヶ月前, or 2秒前. In fact, you can use these "suffixes" with all kinds of words:
(N=native Japanese word, K=katakana/imported word, O=ON reading)
[先 ("in front of"), 前【まえ】 ("ago"), and 沿い【ぞい】 ("alongside")]
The same goes for ON readings. When an ON reading gains enough popularity that people productively start to form new words with it, you could potentially get all sorts of ON/KUN combinations:
With 以外 ("other than"):
Or with 派【は】 ("faction"):
This works with prefixes as well, they are not limited to ON/KUN either:
※ as in 「ポケットモンスター・ルビーに再嵌【はま】りしました」
Note that there are some restrictions to how you can combine these words/prefixes/suffixes. You will probably need to get a feeling for how they combine. As a rule of thumb, expect ON/ON and KUN/KUN combinations and be prepared otherwise.
Everything's pretty much been answered, but I just wanted to add that to the average Japanese speaker, 「さき」would refer to 「先【さき】」(ahead). So saying 十年先【じゅうねんさき】would mean "10 years from now".
Note: 先【さき】 is confusing because saying when used alone it means "before" but when combined with time it means "ahead", but I'll leave it at that since it's off-topic.
