Silent E, Silent K, Silent P Rules | Learn English Silent Letters in Words | 3 Lessons

Hey, this is Bill.

And I've got a nice basic English video for you here today.

Now, I'm going to talk to you about silent ‘e’.

Now, a silent letter is a letter  in a word that we don't say.

It's just there. We write the word. 

We write the letter. But when we read the word,  

we don't say that letter. Now silent ‘e’, kind of a tricky one here. 

And I've got some examples to help you. Now, if you can remember your vowels:  

a, e, I, o , u

Now each vowel has two different sounds.

The short sound and the long sound. Well, silent ‘e’ is the letter ‘e’  

that comes at the end of a word. But we don't say the ‘e’. 

The ‘e’ is just there to change the vowel sound. 

Let's take a look here and I'll show you. All right, now, I have this first word here. 

plan Okay, that's like ‘I have a plan for tomorrow’. 

Okay, so we know that a plan you make a plan, then if I do this, 

now it's not ‘planee’, no. Now it becomes, before it was short ‘a’, plan,  

now, long ‘a’, ‘plane’. Okay like an airplane, all right. 

Look at the plane in the sky. Not plane. 

Now, it's long ‘a’, ‘plane’. Okay. 

Next thing going down here. We know this this is a man's name, ‘Tim’. 

Maybe you have a friend named Tim. Okay, but, and again, that is sound,  

that's short ‘i’. But if we go ahead,  

and if we put silent ‘e’ there, that means now ‘time’. 

Okay. What time is it? 

Alright. Not ‘Timee’. 

Again, silent ‘e’. Don't say it. 

But now you have the long ‘i' sound, ‘time’. Alright. 

If you remember, ‘plan’  had the ‘a’ with short ‘a'. 

So does ‘cap’ with the /æ/ sound. Alright. 

So if we have ‘cap’ right now, let's go ahead and make ‘cape’. 

Alright. Now, we go to long ‘a’ with the ‘cape’ sound. 

Alright. Keep it going here. 

‘hop’ That's short vowel ‘o’. 

The /ɒ/ sound. Alright. 

So we have ‘hop’. I just did one. 

Alright. Now after ‘hop’, we put short ‘e’. 

Don't say ‘hoppee’. We say ‘hope’. 

It's like ‘I hope it does not rain tomorrow  because I'm going to the baseball game.’ 

Things like that. Alright. 

Before it was ‘hop’ now ‘hope’  with the long vowel ‘o’ sound. 

All right. Coming up here,  

we haven't done one with ‘u’ yet. Now long ‘u’, it's a little strange. 

It's /u/ okay. But more on that. 

so here's short ‘u’, ‘tub’. The short vowel ‘u’. 

Alright. From ‘tub’, we put silent ‘e’. 

Again, not ‘tubee’, we say ‘tube’. Alright. 

‘A tube of toothpaste.’ Okay. 

Goes from ‘tub’ to ‘tube’. But still I'm not saying silent ‘e’. 

Alright. After that we come down to ‘bit’. 

‘bit’ means a small piece. You know, ‘Can I have a bit of your bread?’ 

Well that's ‘bit’. Again, same as Tim. 

We have the /ɪ/, short vowel ‘I’. So again, silent ‘e’ comes in. 

‘bite’ not ‘bitee’. ‘bite’ 

Going on there. 

Now, you're probably getting a good idea  of it, so I just got two more for you. 

Again, here. You know, remember, /ʌ/. The short vowel ‘u’. 

/ʌ/ /ʌ/ 

/ʌ/ Well, here is ‘cut’. 

Well, we go ‘cut’ - now ‘cute’. Okay, we have ‘cute’. 

“Ah, look at the cute puppy.” Alright. 

And now, last one here. I've got ‘rip’. 

When you don't have scissors. All right. 

Well there's ‘rip’ and then there's ‘ripe’. Long vowel /eɪ/ with the silent ‘e’. 

So listen to me as I say these. We've got plane, time,  

cape, hope, tube, bite, cute, and ripe. Never did I say the ‘e’ because it's silent. 

It's just there to make a long vowel. Okay. I hope that was helpful. 

And I hope I see you again soon. Thank you very much.

Hi, this is Bill. And right now I have a very  

simple pronunciation video to go through with you. Now, sometimes in English, we have silent letters. 

Now, these are letters that appear in a word  but we don't say them when we read that word. 

so it can be a little difficult when  you're trying to listen or read. 

And I'm just going to  explain this one idea to you. 

And that is ‘k’ before ‘n’  at the beginning of a word. 

Now, you can see all the examples behind me. 

But of course, in this case, if you  see KN at the beginning of a word, 

you do not say the ‘K’ sound. Okay. 

Just forget the K's there. Well don't forget ,but ignore it. 

Okay. Don't make that sound. 

So our first one here. This word is not ‘K-now’. 

Alright. That's horrible right there. 

What you want to do is, you  just want to think ‘no’. 

And you should know this is like,  “I know how to speak English.” 

Alright. These are the things you ‘know’ how to d. 

It's not ‘k-now’. We just know. 

I know how to do things. Alright. 

And then down to ‘knowledge’. Alright. 

Again, no ‘K’ sound. We have ‘knowledge’. 

Now, ‘knowledge’ is all the things you know. If you have a lot of knowledge, you're a very  

smart person. Alright. 

Stupid people, they have no knowledge. Okay. 

Or maybe you just don't  know about a certain topic. 

It's like I have no knowledge  about the Chinese language. 

That's a true thing. I don't know anything. 

All right. Next, we have ‘knight’. 

Now, this is not ‘night time’, like  “Oh day is finished. It's night time.” 

Now, if there's a ‘K’ here, this  is like the old style in England. 

Like King Arthur and his knights. And they wear the armor and fight with swords.  

That sort of thing. That's what that night means. 

We also have this one here. ‘knew’ 

Okay Now, ‘knew’ is just the past tense of ‘know’. 

It's okay, like “Many years  ago, I knew someone named Paul.” 

Alright. That was in the past. 

I don't know him anymore but  I knew him many years ago. 

All right. We also have ‘knee’. 

That's a, that one right there. Okay. 

It's like that middle part of  your leg, where your leg bends. 

That's the ‘knee’. Again, not ‘k-nee'. 

Remember that. Now, ‘kneel’. 

Very similar to ‘knee’. Just plus an ‘L’. 

Now ‘kneel’. It's now sometimes people sit down on a chair, 

but then kneel just means  to go down on your knees. 

Okay. Probably because you don't have a chair. 

So you have to kneel on the floor. Down on your knees. 

Okay. Another one, ‘knife’. 

Very simple. You have to cut something. 

‘knife’ Okay. 

If you ever cook food or prepare food you  might need a knife to cut your vegetables. 

So remember, not ‘K-nife’, just ‘knife’. After that, another example is ‘knit’. 

Okay. You know if you have a  

handmade scarf or maybe a handmade  sweater that means you knit the scarf. 

Okay. It's the old style - making a scarf. 

You knit the scarf - handmade style. Alright. 

Then there's ‘knob’. All right. 

Now ‘knob’ is on some doors. Some doors have a handle,  

but some doors have a knob. And this is you grab it and just turn it. 

It's almost like a ball shape. Grab the knob. Turn the knob. 

It's good thing. All right. 

Also for a door, you have ‘knock’. This is ‘knock knock’. 

Anybody home? Alright. 

You're going to visit your friend. Don't just open the door. 

Well maybe but it's polite - knock knock. Then someone will come and open the door for you. 

Okay. Then, we also have ‘knot’. 

Okay. Now, this isn't like, “I am NOT going home.” 

No. with a ‘k', ‘knot’ is kind of like  

when you tie something like your shoes. Okay. 

You take your shoe strings and you tie them into  a knot so that they don't fall down, fall apart. 

Okay. Tie your shoes in a knot. 

All right. And then down here we have ‘knuckle’. 

All right. ‘knuckle’ 

Kind of like how ‘knee’ is on your  leg, a ‘knuckle’ is on your finger. 

All right. Right there where your fingers bend. 

Those are my knuckles. All right. 

So as you can see here, there's many words. There's more than these, but these are just  

12 of these words, where it starts with  

‘K’ but we can't say the ‘K’. Well can't? We just don't say the  

‘K’ or… it's you're going to look silly. I hope that helps you and I hope you can  

remember it. Thank you.

Hi. This is Bill. And I'm here to help you with some pronunciation. 

Okay. Sometimes in English, we have  

words that have letters we don't pronounce. We call them silent letters. 

And, well, right here, I'm going to tell you  about how the letter P can sometimes be silent. 

Now, this happens when the word begins with  the letter P but then it is followed by another  

consonant. Now, this is when we ignore the letter  P and we do not actually pronounce that letter. 

It is only silent. So let's look right here. 

What I have in this word ,PN begins the  word, but I'm not going to say ‘pu-neumonia’. 

Okay. The P is silent. 

So all I'm going to say is ‘pneumonia’. Okay. 

And ‘pneumonia’ is a sickness  that you get in your lungs. 

That you know … when you're  breathing, you can get sick. 

It's more common in the wintertime. And it's kind of serious. 

So if you do have pneumonia, I hope you're  seeing a doctor, getting help for that. 

But please, the help I can give  you is don't say, “pu-neumonia.” 

Just say, “pneumonia” And remember it's a lung sickness. 

When you're breathing, it's  kind of like all right here. 

Okay. Now, the next one here. 

It's not ‘P-salm’. All right. 

Now, this, we just say ‘psalm’. Now, ‘psalm’ is, it's a part of the Bible. 

If you read the Bible, if you go to church, 

there's a part of the Bible  that's known as the Psalms. 

Like Psalm 1 Psalm 2 and it's just  you know information from the Bible  

and things like that. If you go to church,  

you probably talk about that sort of thing. But what we'll talk about right now is that  

you should pronounce it ‘psalm’. Remember, we have a silent ‘p’,  

so just pronounce the ‘s’. Now, actually for the rest of these,  

you notice PS is getting very common. Because as you look at the next one here,  

‘psychology’. Okay. 

Now, ‘psychology’ is a subject that maybe  you or someone you know studies in school. 

‘psychology’ is all about how people think. It's like the way the mind works. 

Like why we think the way we do. That's the study of psychology. 

Again, not ‘p-sychology’, just ‘psychology’. So then, down here on the next one, 

similar to ‘psychology’, we have ‘psychiatrist’. Now, ‘psychiatrist’ is a doctor who is an expert  

of ‘psychology’. Okay. 

They've studied psychology all through university. They know psychology. 

They help people who want to talk to  someone about how they're thinking. 

You know, they want to see  a doctor about their mind, 

they see the psychiatrist. And he helps them with  

emotional problems or things like that. But, yes, so a psychiatrist studied psychology. 

Now, also similar, we have the ‘psychic’. Now, ‘psychic’ doesn't study psychology. 

The psychic is more of a fortune-teller. If you're curious, or you want to get an idea  

about the future, you might visit a psychic. 

And maybe they check your  hand or they look at cards, 

but a psychic tries to tell you about your future, and that's what they do. 

So, yeah, ‘psychic’ is more of  what we say a ‘fortune-teller’. 

That's a similar term right there. And then down here at the bottom, 

you've probably heard this before is ‘psycho’. Alright this is someone whose mind is a little  

broken. Okay. 

Maybe they do bad things because of it. Many many scary movies have a psycho character  

in them who's causing problems for other people. So, yeah, we have that the psycho person. 

It's kind of, maybe even a  little crazy here, but okay. 

So as you notice, PS very  common, but don't say the P. 

Alright. So just one more time,  

I'm going to pronounce these for you. So listen up. 

We start with pneumonia, psalm, psychology,  psychiatrist, psychic, and psycho. 

So alright. If you ever see these words,  

in something you're reading, just remember, there's a silent P, when the word begins with P,  

and is followed by a consonant. I hope that helps. 

And I hope you remember it. Have a good day.