Silent Letters - Learn the Rules and Improve Your English Pronunciation! Silent Letters - Lernen Sie die Regeln und verbessern Sie Ihre englische Aussprache! Lettres muettes - Apprenez les règles et améliorez votre prononciation en anglais ! Lettere silenziose - Imparate le regole e migliorate la vostra pronuncia inglese! サイレントレター - ルールを学んで英語の発音を上達させよう！ Stille letters - Leer de regels en verbeter je Engelse uitspraak! Ciche litery - poznaj zasady i popraw swoją angielską wymowę! Silent Letters - Aprenda as regras e melhore sua pronúncia em inglês! Беззвучные буквы - выучите правила и улучшите английское произношение! Sessiz Harfler - Kuralları Öğrenin ve İngilizce Telaffuzunuzu Geliştirin! Беззвучні літери - вивчайте правила та покращуйте свою англійську вимову! 无声字母 - 学习规则并提高你的英语发音！

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. Sie können dies in Wörtern wie Stunde oder Ehrlichkeit sehen.

Finally, what do you call a doctor who treats mental illnesses? Und schließlich, wie nennt man einen Arzt, der psychische Erkrankungen behandelt?

This doctor is a psychiatrist.

In words like psychiatrist, which begin with ‘ps', the ‘p' is silent.

These words are often more academic words. Diese Wörter sind oft eher akademische Wörter.

For example: psychology or pseudonym.

There aren't so many everyday words starting with ‘ps'. Es gibt nicht so viele alltägliche Wörter, die mit „ps“ beginnen.

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. Bei stummen Buchstaben in der Mitte eines Wortes gibt es wirklich keine Regeln.

The best way is to write down the words with phonetics. Am besten schreibt man die Wörter mit Phonetik auf.

English spelling is not logical at all. Die englische Rechtschreibung ist überhaupt nicht logisch.

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'. Wenn Sie sich zum Beispiel das Wort Antwort ansehen, könnten Sie versuchen, das „w“ zu lesen.

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. Manchmal kann die Grenze zwischen einem stillen Brief und einem nicht stillen Brief schwer zu ziehen sein.

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 Sie haben zuvor gesehen, dass die meisten stummen Buchstaben Konsonanten sind, aber dass Vokale stumm sein können

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. Jedes Wort hat eine „stille“ Silbe.

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. Es ist jedoch üblicher, diese Wörter zu reduzieren und sie so kurz wie möglich zu machen.

Reducing the words by dropping syllables also makes them shorter and easier to say. Die Reduzierung der Wörter durch Weglassen von Silben macht sie auch kürzer und leichter zu sagen.

This can help you to speak more fluently!

Let's review the words one more time:

comfortable chocolate angenehme Schokolade

different camera

vegetable

You might be thinking: how do I know which words have silent syllables?

How can I check? Wie kann ich das überprüfen?

Good questions: like many points with silent letters, there aren't exactly rules you

can follow. kann folgen.

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. Sehen Sie sich die phonetische Transkription neben dem Wort an.

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 Sie haben gängige Muster mit stillen Buchstaben kennengelernt und gesehen, wie still sie sind

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!