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

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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 available right that minute to study

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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.

The next video to watch is this one which is the one that YouTube has chosen especially for you.

I don't even know what they're choosing but I do trust

so do continue your learning with that video.

Also please subscribe if you haven't already. Make sure to come back here

every Tuesday for a new video.

That's it guys I love teaching the English

thank you for spending your time with me.

That's it and thanks so much for using Rachel's English.