SILENT LETTERS p.2 English Speaking Rules Pronunciation Vocabulary American English
Shhh.. Today we’re going over silent
letters in English and some of the rules
for them and yes! We even found a word
where the R is silent
stick with me you’re going to learn a
lot about correct English pronunciation
We’re starting with I. Why? Because this
is the second video in a two-part series
if you didn’t know that you must have
missed last week’s video get it here or
in the video description below. Okay
the letter I. I can only think of one
word where it’s silent but it’s a very
common word and I’ve definitely heard
lots of non-native speakers mispronounce
this word. It’s business. No extra sound
between Z and N. Business. Just two
syllables. Business. The letter J. I can’t
think of any examples where the letter J
is silent. Well done Jay you’re always
pronounced! K. I definitely think you
already know the rule. K before N is
silent. Nice, knit, knock, knee, know. This rule
doesn’t apply if there’s a syllable
break in a compound word for example
break neck. Have you heard this term it’s
used with speed and it means extremely
fast. The horse ran at a breakneck speed.
it’s not brain Eck. It’s not silent.
Breakneck. L. We have quite a few examples
of a silent L. Should, would, could. No L
sound there. Walk, talk, stock, yoke,
half, calf and like we said in last week’s
video, salmon. So what’s the rule here? No
there isn’t really one. Just know these
words. I’ve heard the rule L is silent
after A, O or U but there are just too
many exceptions to that rule for it to
make sense. Bolt, bald, salt, cold, solve,
pulp, bulb, rule for example. M. This letter
is silent only at the beginning of a
word that begins with M N and these
words are very uncommon. The most common
is mnemonic. Mnemonic. Notice I’m starting
that with an N sound
not M. M is silent. Mnemonic mnemonic. This
means something used to help you
remember something. You’ll hear it in the
phrase mnemonic device. For example when
I was a kid taking piano lessons I used
the phrase ‘every good boy does fine’ to
learn the notes on the staff. E G B D F. A
mnemonic device. N. This letter is
silent after M at the end of a word like
damn, him, column, autumn, solemn. But it’s
not always silent after M in other
places in a word like in the word alumni
or chimney where it is pronounced. The
letter O. It’s silent in sophomore. Now
here we have three O’s there and only
one is silent it’s the middle one. this
is just a two syllable word. Sophomore.
the middle O is silent. Sophomore. I can’t
think of any more words with a silent O.
The letter P can be silent when it’s
followed by S at the beginning of the
word. Like in the words Psalm, pseudo, and
psychic. It’s also silent in PN at the
beginning of a word like pneumonia. It’s
also silent in the common word receipt
and in raspberry, coup and corp. The letter Q.
Another letter that’s never silent.
well done Q! Way to stick up for yourself.
The letter R. I’ve heard people say this
is never silent in American English. And
maybe I’ve even said that before myself
but I did find a word. The R is silent
probably because we use the British
pronunciation it’s Worcester. It’s the
name of a town in Massachusetts. It’s
also in the name of an amazing tasty
sauce. Worcestershire sauce. And it has a
silent R. Worcester. The letter S you’ve
probably noticed this is silent in the
word island, Isle, and also debris. Hey
guys, popping in here to take a minute to
tell you about Cambly. Do you know about
this? It’s a website and an app that can
connect you to English teachers and
they’re offering a deal for you fans of
Rachel’s English
15 minutes free one on one with a
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my Academy is the best place to work on
pronunciation. But a lot of my students
want specific test prep help and that’s
something I don’t currently offer. With
Cambly you can search for teachers who
specialize in TOEFL or IELTS test prep.
You can see a list of teachers who are
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meet one-on-one just like I did earlier
this week with Dan. If you want to
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You can read about the teachers and see
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Cambly for sponsoring this video and
supporting the Rachel’s English
community. Let’s get back to those silent
letters. The letter T now here we get
into some words that do not have a T
sound and then some words that in the
dictionary do have a T sound but the
habit of Americans is to pronounce them
without a T sound. We’ll go over the
words with officially no T sound
according to the dictionary first. With
these words the T is silent. Words that
end in sten, ften or stle, sten. Fasten,
listen, moisten.
Glisten. No T. There is an exception and
it’s the word ‘tungsten.’ There we do say
the T tungsten. Tttt tungsten. It’s one of the
elements on the periodic table of
elements. Thistle, whistle, wrestle, bustle,
castle. No T. Often and soften. Though I
should say saying the T and often is now
accepted it’s been done so many times
you’ll see both of those pronunciations
in the dictionary. Often or often. The T
is also silent in mortgage and at the
end of some words rapport, ricochet
gourmet, ballet, beret, Chevrolet. Now let’s
talk about when the T is unofficially
silent. This is if you look these words
up in the dictionary they would probably
still show a T sound but that’s not the
habit of most Americans. It’s really
common for Americans to drop the T
between two other consonant sounds and
make it silent. For example Christmas and
exactly. It’s also quite common to make
it silent after an N like Internet or
center or international or wanted. It’s
also really common to make a T silent
when it’s part of an ending consonant
cluster and the next word begins with a
consonant. Let’s take an example the word
‘just.’ It ends in the st cluster. When that
word is followed by a word that begins
with a consonant it’s very common for
Americans to drop that T just thought,
just one, just hope, just need, for example.
No T sound. The letter U. This is often
silent after G. It’s a clue how to
pronounce the G rather than a letter
that is itself pronounced. Look at these
words: guide, guitar, guess
tongue, baguette, colleague the letter V
again another sound in American English
that’s never silent. Well done V you did
it! W. W is silent in some common words. two,
who, answer, whole and sword. It’s also
silent at the beginning of a word with
R. Right, wrong, wreck, wrist, wreath,
wrinkle, wrestle. Whoo that one has a
silent T too. Wrestle. X. The X is silent in
the word faux. This word means fake. You
could use it with fur. This is a faux fur
jacket. It’s also silent in the phrase
‘faux pas’ which is an embarrassing
mistake in a social situation. For
example: He showed up to the party in
jeans. It was a dressy event so it was a
faux pas.
The letter Y. Wow!
again here we are almost at the end of
the alphabet and we found another letter
that’s never silent
good job Y.
Z.
Silent in rendezvous.
Now if you’re French and you’re hearing me say this word
and all the words here today that we’ve
borrowed from French
you probably think this woman has horrible pronunciation
please know I totally agree with you.
I have horrible French pronunciation
But when a language adopts the word from another language
they do their own thing with it and this is what we’ve done.
We’ve Americanized the pronunciation somewhat but we did keep that silent Z.
Rendezvous.
Wow! We made it A through Z. So many cases of silent letters in English
What words did you learn today that have silent letters that you didn’t know before?
Let me know in the comments below.
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thank you for spending your time with me.
That’s it and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.