Silent Letters | English Pronunciation & Vocabulary | PART 2

554

Hey guys! I'm Emma from mmmEnglish and

welcome to another video lesson! This is

actually part 2 of a video series about

silent letters in English words so if

you want to watch part 1,

you can watch it here or here... I can't

remember where... I never remember where!

Anyway, or the links in the

description under this video so you can

find it there. In part one of the video

we went through silent letters that are

in the first half of the alphabet, so

from A to L. So, we've still got half to

go. But luckily for you the letter M is

usually pronounced and so you don't have

to worry about the letter M. N on the

other hand, you do have to worry about!

Now, before i explain i want to show you

the difference between M and N so that

you can hear and you can see the

difference in my mouth when I'm

explaining because it can get a bit

confusing! So, M you'll see that all of

my lips are touching, all the way along,

like in the word 'mum' or or in 'mmmEnglish'

or 'Emma'. The letter N; my mouth is open

actually and it's my tongue that's doing

the work. So, my tongue is lifting to the

roof of my mouth, behind my teeth; N, N.

So, now you can see the difference

between M and N. It's important because

when i'm explaining the silent letter N

it actually is silent when it's next

to M. Confusing, huh?

Let's look at some examples!

DAMN (like damn it!)

HYMN (a song that you sing in church)

The letter P can also be silent in words

like receipt psychology and psycho.

Now, remember that P can also be silent

or it changes when it's next to a H

and together PH can often mean and F

sound, like in the examples paragraph and

telephone. Now the letter R is not silent

in American English but it can be in

British English and also Australian

English. If you think about words like

'butter', 'butter', the R at the end of the

word is not pronounced. Now an S can also

be silent and i know that you've already

struggled with this one!

and AISLE (the bride walked down the aisle)

So, an S can be a little

bit sneaky, that one! Now, the letter T can

also be a bit sneaky and it can also be

silent. Like in these examples and

there's quite a few!

Cheeky little T!

Now the letter U can also be

silent and i bet you didn't think of

that letter when we started talking

about silent letters in English! But it's

quite common. Have a look at all of these

examples of really common english words. Words like,

It's also not usually pronounced in

adverbs like 'beautifully', 'wonderfully'.

The letter W is silent when it's at the

start of a word before the letter R. Like,

It's also not pronounced in these common

words:

Well that's it for silent letters and

for the silent letter series. If you've

got any questions or comments just put

them into the comments section under

this video so i can get back to you!

Check out my website if you want to

study with me and you're interested in

online courses or jump over to my

Facebook page and make sure that you

follow my page. I do live lessons every

week! Thanks for watching and I'll see

you again very soon! Bye for now!