Did you know that there are many letters that can be silent at times in English. Sometimes we pronounce them, and sometimes we don't?

I know... it only makes it more complicated. There are sometimes rules or this; other times it is irregular.

Some examples:

The verbs 'talk' and 'walk' both have a silent letter. It is the letter 'L'. They are pronounced 'tok' and 'wok'. The L is silent. On the other hand, we do pronounce the 'L' in lion, lamp, lollipop, light and more.

Another common pronuciation error that I hear from students is the word 'answer'.

Can you guess the silent letter?

It is 'w'. We say this word like 'ans-er'. We do pronounce the 'w' in win, wonderful, window and many more words.

Some more challenging words to pronounce have more than 1 silent letter.

Some examples of this are as follows:

- Caught, this is the past tense of catch. Caught is pronounced like 'cot' or 'caut'. The 'GH' are silent.

- Through, the 'GH' is also silent in this word. It is pronounced like 'thru'.

Although, we usually pronounce the letter 'h' in English, there are a few exceptions.

We pronounce the 'h' in hotel, help, here, her, helicopter, and more. We do not pronounce the 'h' in hour, honest, vehicle, and ghost.

I teach different rules for pronunciation and how to pronounce words correctly in my classes, as well as English grammar, writing, conversation, professional communication, interview preparation, preparation for tests and more. Send me a message to get started, or with any questions.

Thanks for reading.

Have a wonderful day!

Lorraine Black