Silent Letters Learn the Rules and Improve Your English Pronunciation
Hi, I’m Kae.
Welcome to Oxford Online English.
In this lesson, you can learn about silent
letters in English.
Think about words like know, climb, or answer.
They all have silent letters: letters which
are written, but not pronounced.
Do you know which letters are silent in these
three words?
In this lesson, you’ll learn more about
silent letters, so that your English pronunciation
can be clear and correct!
Right, so do you know any words which start
with a silent letter?
You should; there was one in the question
I just asked you!
The word know starts with a silent letter:
you say /nəʊ/ and not /knəʊ/.
There are other words like this, which start
with ‘kn’, but the ‘k’ is not pronounced.
Can you think of any?
Other examples are knee, knife, or knock.
Another common silent letter at the start
of a word is ‘h’.
You can see this in words like hour or honest.
Finally, what do you call a doctor who treats
mental illnesses?
This doctor is a psychiatrist.
In words like psychiatrist, which begin with
‘ps’, the ‘p’ is silent.
These words are often more academic words.
For example: psychology or pseudonym.
There aren’t so many everyday words starting
with ‘ps’.
So now you know three ways a word can start
with a silent letter:
‘kn’, like know, knee, knife, or knock
‘h’, like honest or hour
‘ps’, like psychiatrist, psychology or pseudonym
You can also find silent letters in the middle of a word.
Here, there are many letters which can be
silent.
Let’s do a test.
I’m going to show you five words.
Can you find the silent letters?
Do you know the answers?
Let’s look together.
The ‘b’ in debt is silent: /det/.
The ‘i’ in business is silent: /’bɪznəs/.
This is unusual, because normally, silent
letters are consonants.
However, vowels can sometimes be silent, too.
The ‘l’ in half is silent: /hɑːf/.
The ‘p’ in receipt is silent: /rə’siːt/.
And lastly, the ‘w’ in answer is silent:
/’ɑnsə/.
Did you get the right answers?
You can see that many different letters can
be silent, and that silent letters can be
anywhere in the word.
So how do you know if a letter is silent or
not?
With silent letters in the middle of a word,
there really aren’t any rules.
The best way is to write down the words with phonetics.
English spelling is not logical at all.
Using phonetics to write down vocabulary will
help you remember the correct pronunciation.
For example, if you look at the word answer,
you might try to read the ‘w’.
But if you use the phonetics, you can see
that there’s no /w/ sound: /’ɑːnsə/.
Let’s do some more practice.
Look at five more words.
Can you find the silent letters?
Muscle,
should, island, guitar, sword.
So now, you’ve seen many of the common English
words which have a silent letter in the middle.
You can also find silent letters at the end
of a word.
Here, things are a bit more regular; there
are patterns you can find.
What’s this?
Is it my /θʌm/ or my /θʌmb/?
It’s my thumb.
The ‘b’ is silent.
In other words ending –mb, the ‘b’ is
also silent: climb, limb, bomb.
There are also a few words ending –mn, and
the ‘n’ is silent, like autumn or damn.
Finally, there are also some French words
which are used in English, like ballet, buffet
or gourmet.
With these words, you use the French pronunciation,
so you say /bæ’leɪ/ and not /’bælət/.
What about words like rate, site, or cope?
Those end with a silent ‘e’, right?
Yes and no.
Sometimes, the line between a silent letter
and a non-silent letter can be hard to draw.
This isn’t always true: think about the
word autumn.
The ‘n’ is completely silent.
You could take it away and you would still
pronounce the word the same way.
Now, think about the word site.
You might say that the ‘e’ is silent.
However, if the ‘e’ wasn’t there, you
would pronounce the word /sɪt/, as in ‘sit
down’.
So sometimes, silent letters aren’t completely
silent.
‘Silent’ letters can change the pronunciation
of a word, even if you don’t pronounce the
letter itself.
Look at five pairs of words, and think about
how the ‘e’ on the end changes the pronunciation.
Let’s read the words together:
win/wine
us/use
cop/cope
her/here
rat/rate
You can see that adding ‘e’ to the end
of a word makes a big difference to the pronunciation,
even if you don’t actually pronounce it.
Sometimes, silent letters can make an even
bigger difference to the pronunciation of
a word.
You saw before that most silent letters are
consonants, but that vowels can be silent
letters, too.
Sometimes, a vowel can be silent and this
can mean that a word ‘loses’ a syllable.
An example?
Take the word restaurant.
It’s written with three syllables: /res
– tə - rɒnt/.
However, in spoken English, it usually has
two syllables: /’restrɒnt/.
This is a special case, because these letters
aren’t necessarily silent.
You could say restaurant with three syllables:
/’restərɒnt/.
However, most native speakers wouldn’t pronounce
the word like this.
Can you think of any more examples like this?
Let’s practise.
Here are five words.
Each word has one ‘silent’ syllable.
Which syllable might not be pronounced?
Pause the video and think about your answers
if you want!
Let’s look together:
In comfortable, the ‘or’ can be dropped:
/’kʌmftəbəl/.
In chocolate, the ‘o’ can be dropped:
/’tʃɒklət/.
In different, the first ‘e’ can be dropped:
/’dɪfrənt/.
In camera, the ‘e’ can be dropped: /’kæmrə/.
And in vegetable, you can drop the second
‘e’: /’vedʒtəbəl/
Remember that in all of these words, the letters
aren’t necessarily silent.
Some native speakers pronounce all of the
syllables in these words.
However, it’s more common to reduce these
words and make them as short as you can.
Reducing the words by dropping syllables also
makes them shorter and easier to say.
This can help you to speak more fluently!
Let’s review the words one more time:
comfortable
chocolate
different
camera
vegetable
You might be thinking: how do I know which
words have silent syllables?
How can I check?
Good questions: like many points with silent
letters, there aren’t exactly rules you
can follow.
However, you can check whether a word has
silent syllables or not.
Look the word up in a dictionary.
Look at the phonetic transcription, next to
the word.
A good dictionary will show you all the possible
pronunciations of the word, including whether
any syllables can be dropped.
So now you’ve seen how letters can be silent.
You’ve learned about common patterns with
silent letters, and you’ve seen how silent
letters can change the pronunciation of a
word.
You can practice this topic more on our website
where there’s a quiz to help you review what
you’ve learned in this lesson.
There are also many other great free English
lessons.
Thanks for watching.
See you next time!