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Session 68

James explains some more rules for silent 'e' in this English In A Minute.

Wayiitiwwan marii boqonnaa kana keessaa

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Wayitii marii qabxii 68

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    Activity 1
  1. Activity 1

Activity 1

Rules for silent 'e' (part 2)

What difference does a silent ‘e’ make to pronouncing words? James is here to explain some more rules and he does it in just one minute!

Vidiyoo daawwadhuuti shaakala kana xumuri

Barreeffama agarsiisiBarreeffama dhoksi

James

We're going to take a look at some more rules for how to pronounce words ending with silent e today.

Firstly, the letters c and g can have hard consonant sounds like /k/ and /g/.

However, when the word ends with a silent e it changes the pronunciation of these consonants.

C and g become soft consonant sounds /s/ and /ʤ/.

So it's pronounced /mais/ not /maik/ and /keiʤ/ not /keig/.

Another very similar rule is for the pronunciation of th.

When a word ends with th and then a silent e,

it changes from a /θ/ sound to a /ð/ sound.

The most common example of this is the word the.

It's pronounced with a /ð/ sound.

Some other examples include breath and breathe and bath and bathe.

These nice and easy rules should help you when pronouncing new words.

Just remember that the silent e changes pronunciation.

Rules for silent 'e' (part 2)

1. An e after a c or g changes the sound from /k/ and /g/ to /s/ and /ʤ/

  • mice = /mais/
  • cage = /keiʤ/

2. When a word ends with th and then a silent e, it changes from a /θ/ sound to a /ð/ sound.

  • breath /θ/ ---> breathe /ð/
  • bath /θ/ ---> bathe /ð/

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