silent letters
Written but unspoken
Silent letters are letters in a word's spelling that aren't pronounced: the *k* in knight, the *b* in doubt, the *gh* in thought.
English has many because spelling was often fixed centuries ago while pronunciation continued to shift, or because words were borrowed from other languages with different sound-spelling conventions.
- spelling patternsRules governing letter arrangements
- English spellingHow words are written
- spelling beeWord-accuracy competition
- digraphsTwo-letter phonetic units
- spelling errorsIncorrectly written words
grapheme · French influence · orthography · written language · psalm · elision · debt · loanwords · word origin · knight · gnome · pneumonia · etymology · spelling conventions · pronunciation rules · phonetics · Latin roots · wreath
- Speech Practicearticulation, enunciation, pronunciation drills, pronunciation practice, tongue twisters
- lettersa, d, e, h, q
- vocabularyword, words, new words, term, terms
- spellingspelling, spelling rules, spelling patterns, spelling errors, spelling conventions
- Hard to pronounceWorcestershire, Siobhan, Saoirse, Xhosa, tongue twisters
- word featuresprefixes, suffixes, root words, syllable count, spelling patterns