How to Improve English Pronunciation of Silent Letters By Laurianne Surchoix At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

With English as second language, proper pronunciation in the vernacular can be more difficult than usual. These few tips should help you get a good grasp on it.

1. Speak Slowly. The faster you speak, the more mistakes you’re going to make. Unless you’ve already mastered a language, a slower pace will be of tremendous benefit. The faster you speak, the more pronounced your accent is going to be. In the English language, taking 2.5 seconds to utter a word is perfectly normal for non-native speakers.

2. Pronounce All The Sounds. As someone who’s more familiar with the nuances of a language other than English, it’s tempting to ignore certain sounds if you’re unused to doing them in your native tongue. Problem is, those utterances could be what separates one phrase from another, so make it a point to enunciate everything completely. Use your language software or audio course to learn the proper way to pronounce each portion of the speech.

3. Record Your Speech. A great way to be alerted of your weaknesses in pronunciation is to make a habit of speaking into a recorder and studying your speech. Recording lines that you hear from a movie, for instance, allows you to compare your speech to that of a better speaker. With enough practice, you can train yourself to deliver words in the correct manner by mimicking the source.

4. Speak Louder. Many folks speaking an unfamiliar language tend to drown out their speech with their thoughts, basically speaking with too soft a voice due to fear of saying the wrong things. Unfortunately, doing so just reinforces any bad pronunciation as they are unable to hear themselves clearly, apart from making it harder for others to properly make out what they’re saying.

When practicing your English pronunciation, one of the tricky areas are those of silent letters. While the rules governing which sounds remain unpronounced can feel arbitrary, the English language actually follows strict guidelines when it comes to silent letters. Use this list as a guide whenever you’re practicing your vocabulary skills, either in front of a language learning software or just by yourself.

* The letter B is silent when it’s at the end of the word and is immediately preceded by the letter M (e.g. dumb, comb).
* The letter C is silent only in words ending in “scle” (e.g. muscle).
* The letter D is silent in only three words of the language, namely sandwich, Wednesday and hendkerchief.
* The letter E is silent when used at the end of words and is immediately preceded by a consonant (e.g. mine, drive).
* The letter G is silent when followed by N (e.g. foreign, sign).
* The letters G and H are silent when used together and are followed by T (e.g. daughter, right).
* The letter H is silent when used after W (e.g. whether, why) and, sometimes, when used in the beginning of words, followed by a vowel (not always, though, so it’s tricky).
* The letter K is silent when followed by the letter N at the start of a word (e.g. knife, knowledge).
* The letter L is silent when used before the following letters: D, F, K, L and M (e.g. talk, calm).
* The letter N is silent when followed by M at the end of a word (e.g. hymn).
* The letter P is not pronounced at the beginning of words when it is followed by N or S (e.g. psychiatrist, pneumatic).
* The letter S is not pronounced only in the following words: island, isle.
* The letter U is not pronounced when used after G and before the following vowels: I, E (e.g. guitar, guest).
* The letter W is not pronounced when used at the start of a word and followed by the letter R (e.g. wrangler, wrong). It also isn’t pronounced when used in the following pronouns: who, whose, whom.

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