in english language how do i know which letter is silent...is there any rule..wat's it?

Question

i never know which letter is silent ..its only my guesses that help me.....i want to know is there any specific rule that needs to be followed........plz let me know

Answer 1

There are so many different cases it makes no sense to try to summarize it all in "rules". It works better in most cases simply to memorize the specific words.

BUT you CAN learn some common patterns or GROUPS of words which all have the same silent letter. Here is one attempt to collect some of the most common cases (which I've edited and added a few notes to):

* Kn of Gn at the beginning of a word (silent k/g), e.g. knife, knock, know, gnome, gnaw, gnu

* Ps at the beginning of a word (silent p), e.g. psalm, psychiatry, psychology
* Sc at the beginning of a word followed by 'e' or 'i', (silent c), e.g. scene, scent, science, scissors

* Mn at the end of a word (silent n), e.g. damn, autumn, column (Note that this n IS pronounced in related words -- "damnation, columnar, autumnal")
* Mb at the end of a word (silent b), e.g. comb, lamb, climb.

* Bt (silent b), e.g. debt, doubtful, subtle (but not for the prefix "ob" -- 'obtain', 'unobtrusive')

* Ght (silent gh), e.g. light, night, ought, taught, thought, eight
("-ough" is the trickiest combination, because it has several different pronunciations which are hard to predict. Best just to memorize the individual words)


The letter H is silent in the following situations:
* At the end of word preceded by a vowel, e.g. cheetah, Sarah, messiah;
* Between two vowels, e.g. annihilate, vehement, vehicle
* After the letter 'r', e.g. rhyme, rhubarb, rhythm
* After the prefix 'ex', e.g. exhausting, exhibition, exhort (except when the "ex"-syllable has the accent -- "exhale")

http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/grammar/archive/silentletters01.html


I would add --

*Ft and St (silent t) when followed by -en or -le (most of the time): e.g., often,soften, listen, glisten, hasten, chasten, castle, thistle, whistle, wrestle (Words related to these, that END with ft of st, the t IS pronounced: oft, soft, list, haste, chaste, wrest.)

*Lm, Lk, Lf, Lv, Ld at the end of a word, sometimes in the middle (silent l) e.g., calm, psalm, salmon, talk, walk, half, calves, could


Also:
silent e" in the combination 'vowel + consonant + e" at the end of words (or before an -s or-d suffix)... This e is not entirely useless, because it often indicates that the first vowel is long

related to this -- doubled consonant before endings the begin with a vowel (such as -ed, -ing), indicate that the vowel before these is short. e.g., stopped, batting; compare bating, in which the first vowel is long

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EDIT: The wikipedia article another answer copied is at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_letter
(It explains WHY some of these letters are silent, but it doesn't provide much in the way of rules or a list to use.)

For "silent e" see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_E

Answer 2

There is no rule. You have to look at word context and apply experience. There really is no way to predict where there is a silent letter besides knowing the word. That's why it is so difficult to learn English as a second language.

Answer 3

The only letter rules I know are for determining vowel pronunciation: 1) When 2 vowels go walking, the first does the talking, meaning when you have two vowels together (like "meaning"), the first one "says its own name" and the second is silent. 2) The silent "e" at the end makes the vowel in the middle say its own name (like "name"), the vowel in the middle "says its own name" and the "e" at the end is silent. As far as silent initial letters (like "k" in "knght" or "g" in "ghost"), those are just straight memorisation.

Answer 4

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Answer 5

I am not aware of any rule on silent letters even when I was still teaching. However, here's what the web got.

Silent letter
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In an alphabetic writing system, a silent letter is a letter that, in a particular word, does not correspond to any sound in the word's pronunciation. Silent letters create problems for both native and non-native speakers of a language, as they make it more difficult to guess the spellings of spoken words or the pronunciations of written words. Newly developed alphabets for previously unwritten languages and for planned languages such as Esperanto are thus typically designed to have no silent letters.
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English

One of the noted deficiencies of English spelling is a high number of silent letters. Carney distinguishes different kinds of "silent" letter, which present differing degrees of difficulty to readers and writers.

* Auxiliary letters which constitute digraphs, where 2 letters combine to represent a single phoneme. These may further be categorized as
o "exocentric" digraphs, where the sound of the digraph is different from that of either of its constituent letters. These are rarely considered "silent". There are examples
+ where the phoneme has no standard single-letter representation, as with consonants for /ŋ/ as in sing, for /θ/ as in thin or /ð/ as in then, and for /ʃ/ as in show, and diphthongs in out or in point. These are the default spellings for the relevant sounds and present no special difficulty for readers or writers.
+ where standard single-letter representation uses another letter, as with in enough or in physical instead of . These are irregular for writers but may be less difficult for readers.
o "endocentric" digraphs, where the sound of the digraph is the same as that of one of its constituent letters. These include
+ most doubled consonants, as in clubbed; though not geminate consonants, as in misspell. Doubling due to suffixation or inflection is regular; otherwise it may present difficulty to writers (e.g. accommodate is often misspelt) but not to readers.
+ the discontiguous digraphs whose second element is "magic e", e.g. in rate, in fine. This is the regular way to represent "long" vowels in the last syllable of a morpheme.
+ others such as (which is in effect the "doubled" form of ), as in guard, vogue; as in bread, heavy, etc. These are difficult for writers and sometimes for readers.
* Dummy letters which bear no relation to neighbouring letters and have no correspondence in pronunciation
o Some are inert letters, where the letter is sounded in a cognate word: e.g. in damn (cf. damnation); in phlegm (cf. phlegmatic); in practically (cf. practical). If the cognate is obvious, it may aid writers in spelling, but mislead readers in pronunciation.
o The rest are empty letters which never have a sound, e.g. in answer, in honest, in island, in subtle. These present the greatest difficulty to writers and often to readers.

The distinction between "endocentric" digraphs and empty letters is somewhat arbitrary. For example, in such words as little and bottle one might view as an "endocentric" digraph for /l̩/, or view as an empty letter; similarly with or in buy and build.

Not all silent letters are completely redundant:

* Silent letters can distinguish between homophones, e.g. in/inn; be/bee; cops/copse; hour/our; lent/leant. This is an aid to readers already familiar with both words.
* Silent letters may give an insight into the meaning or origin of a word, e.g. vineyard suggests vines more than the phonetic *vinyard would.
* The final in giraffe gives a clue to the second-syllable stress, where giraf might suggest initial-stress.

Silent letters arise in several ways:

* Pronunciation changes occurring without a spelling change. The spelling was in Old English pronounced [x] in such words as light.
* Sound distinctions from foreign languages may be lost, as with the distinction between smooth rho (ρ) and roughly aspirated rho (ῥ) in Ancient Greek, represented by and in Latin, but merged to the same [r] in English. Similarly with / , the latter from Greek phi.
* Clusters of consonants may be simplified, producing e.g. silent in asthma, silent in grandfather. Similarly with alien clusters such as Greek initial in psychology and in mnemonic.
* Occasionally, spurious letters are consciously inserted in spelling. The in debt and doubt was inserted to reflect Latin cognates like debit and dubitable.

Since accent and pronunciation differ, letters may be silent for some speakers but not others. In non-rhotic accents, is silent in such words as hard, feathered; in h-dropping accents, is silent. A speaker may pronounce in "often" or "tsunami" or neither or both.
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See also

* Silent E
* Three letter rule source of some common English silent letters.
* List of names in English with non-intuitive pronunciations many with multiple silent letters.

Hope this helps.