Fabulous trick to improve your pronunciation: stop pronouncing “silent letters”
English words have letters that are pronounced, but other letters are not pronounced, they are silent. When do you pronounce those letters and when don’t you pronounce them?
About 60 % of English words have silent letters. There are some simple rules that are going to help you to pronounce English words correctly, and to do so we are going to follow the alphabet.
A can be silent, especially after words ending -ally. Examples: romantically, logically, musically
B is silent after letter M. Examples: climb, crumb, lamb, thumb, dumb, plumber. B is also silent after the consonant T. Examples: subtle, debt, doubt.
C is often silent after the letter S. Examples: muscle, scissors, fascinate, scene, scenario.
D can be silent after letter N. Examples: Wednesday, handsome, sandwich
E can be silent at the end of a word. Examples: clue, bake, taste
G can be silent before letter N. Examples: sign, champagne, design, foreign. It can also be silent before letter H. Examples: though, high, light, daughter, bright.
H can be silent after letter W. Examples: what, why, whistle. It can also be silent at the beginning of some words. Examples: honest, honesty, hour. Sometimes it can also be silent when it follows C, G or R. Examples: choir, echo, ghost, rhythm, rhyme
I is usually pronounced except for the word business.
K is never pronounced before letter N. Examples: know, knowledge, knee, knock, knot.
L can also be silent is some situations. Examples: could, should, talk, walk, yolk, calf, half, salmon
N is usually silent when is next to an M. Examples: damn, autumn, hymn, column
P can be silent in some words such as receipt or psychology. Remember that letter P when is next to letter H can alter its pronunciation to /f/. Example: paragraph, telephone
R is not silent in American English, but it can be in British or Australian English. Example: butter
S can be silent in words such as island, debris, isle
T can also be silent in some words such as in listen, castle, ballet, soften, gourmet, asthma, Christmas, whistle
U is sometimes not pronounced when is followed by another vowel. Examples: guitar, guilty, tongue, guard, colleague, guess. In some adverbs, it is sometimes not pronounced either. Examples: beautifully, wonderfully.
W is not pronounced at the start of a word before the letter R. Examples: wrong, wrist, write, wrote. There are other words where it is not pronounced either. Examples: who, whoever, whole, two, sword, answer.
That is about silent letters. Hope this article has been interesting and useful to you. If you have any comments or doubts, just put them under this section, to share your ideas with all of us !!