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!
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/