Rules for reading the letters c and g, as well as the letter combinations ch, gh in English. Silent letters
18.12.2015
Today we will talk about how to correctly read English words that contain the letters “c” and “g” or the letter combinations “ch”, “gh”. Such words seem especially difficult not only to those who have just started, but also to those who seem to already speak and read English well, but have not taken a course in English phonetics, and therefore read the words “as I remember, as I heard.” There are not many “complex” letters and letter combinations in the English language, and today there will be 4 fewer of them for you!
Rules for reading the letter "s"
Typically the English letter "s" is pronounced [ k]: come, clone, cube, cave.
Like the sound [ s] it is pronounced only when it comes before the letters “ e, i, y»: cinema, center, cycle, capacity, practice.
Letter combination "ch"
As for this letter combination in English, there are several rules for reading it:
- Like the sound [h] - chin, chess, chill, chips, chops, such;
- In words of French origin like [w] – machine, chic;
- In words of Greek origin like [k] – architect, archaic, chemistry, scheme, character, technical, school;
Rules for reading the letter "g"
Yes, yes, this letter is one of the most difficult, not in terms of the pronunciation process itself, but in terms of correctly reading it in different words. There are several rules for reading the letter “g”:
- Like [g] before vowels a, o, u – gas, gold, gun;
- Like [g] before any consonant – green, glass;
- Like [g] at the end of a word - big, strong;
- Like [j] before e, i, y – page, giant, gym;
- In words of French origin like [zh] – garage, massage, genre;
Exception words, in which “g” is read as [g]: anger, begin, forget, forgive, geese, get, gift, girl, give, hunger, target, tiger, together.
Letter combination "gh"
And lastly, the combination of English letters “gh” is usually not readable, i.e. if "gh" is at the end of a word, such as sigh, high, eight, neighbor, through, highest, night, fight etc., then we pronounce this syllable as [ai / ay]: “sai, hai, eit.”
Exception words, in which the letter combination “gh” can be read as [g] or as [f]: cough(kof), draft(draft), enough(inaf), ghost(ghost), laugh(laf), rough(raf), tough(taf).
That's how it is, friends. If you still have questions about or how these letters are read correctly in certain words, write, I will be happy to answer you.
See you soon! Bye-bye for now!
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The rules of reading in English are extensive and complex, because... There is a huge discrepancy between letters and sounds: there are 26 letters and 44 sounds, so different letters in different positions produce different sounds, which in English are conveyed by conventions called transcription marks. In this post, to make it easier to learn the rules of reading, we denote them partially in Russian letters.
4 Basic Types of Vowel Reading
First, let's learn the 4 main types of reading vowels E, A, Y, U, O, I in stressed syllables in English
Google shortcode
I reading type - open syllable ( a syllable ending in a vowel is considered open, even if it is not pronounced)
Pay attention to the first row of the table. The words same, note, he, fine, my, cube, like all words of this category, end in a silent vowel, and the reading of the vowels in the root of the word coincides with the name of the letters according to the alphabet. Thus, words with silent vowels at the end, i.e. words of type 1 reading same, note, he, fine, my, cube, will sound like “seim, note, hee, fine, may, cube”
Let's consolidate the reading of vowels in a stressed syllable with the following exercise:
Note, lone, mice, rice, type, tune, shy, lay, say, he, hay, name, same, nine, nice, game, came, make, Kate, Pete, five, tie, life, eve, me, size, no, cope, smoke, rose, nose, spine, sly, cry, vine, maze, home, tube, made, fume, cube, pace, lace, sky, hale, spine.
II reading type – closed syllable (a syllable ending in a consonant is considered closed). This is the second row in the table. Pay attention to the words rat, hot, red, bit, myth, run, which do not have a silent vowel at the end. These words sound like "rat, hot, ed, beat, miss, ran."
Cap, pen, bed, ten, not, spot, lot, bad, rat, sit, send, test, pit, in, send, spell, tin, less, ban, mad, fat, Sam, land, did, fit, sat, pet, tin, slip, sad, glad, bag, jam, gap, lag, can, kin, Jim, Jack, yes, ink, cup, run, cod, spin, not, doll, hop, hot, bank, rank, spin, up, us, bus, bun, cut, fun, vet, well, but, nut.
III type of reading – vowel + letter “r” , which affects the sound of the vowel at the root of the word, giving it some prolongation. So the words car, sort, term, fir, Byrd, fur sound like “ka: so:t, te:m, fe: be:d, fe:”.
stern , Far, curt, hard, hart, car, card, cart, fork, cork, work, sort, term, first, Byrd, furs, curl, her, curb, turn, girl, sir, burn, turn, word, born, torn, bird, form, serf, herb.
IVreading type – vowel + letter “r” + vowel. The letter “r” is also unreadable in this case; all three vowels together sound like this: care, store, mere, tire, cure - “kea, hundred:, mie, taie, kue.”
Fare, here, pure, rare, cure, during, mare, fire, bare, mire, stare, tire, sere, mere, store, core, more, care.
Video lesson: Rules for reading the vowel A in English
IN Idea lesson: Rules for reading the vowel E in English
Video lesson: Rules for reading the vowel U in English
Video lesson: Rules for reading the vowel O in English
Video lesson:Rules for reading vowels I,Y
Consonants with two reading options
*s m\z (interdental) – th – there is no such sound in the Russian language. This sound is dull and resembles the Russian sound “s”, but when pronouncing it, the tongue is located between the front upper and lower teeth, and a stream of air passes through the created narrow gap with force.
**we pronounce the interdental sound “z” in the same way.
Video lesson: Rules for reading English consonants
Reading chart for vowels combined with consonants
For high-quality assimilation of the sound system and the rules of reading the English language, we recommend repeating the above reading rules daily and trying to read monosyllabic words from the dictionary.
Video lesson: Rules for reading various letter combinations in English
Video lesson: Rules for reading English vowels in unstressed position
For rules for reading unpronounceable consonants, see
- Tip: To check the correct pronunciation, you can use the audio function of online dictionaries.
A lot of words in the English language end with the letter “e”. Moreover, the letter “e” itself in this case does not make any sound, that is, it is not readable. Hence the name: “mute “e””. For example: lake - lake. There are actually only six exceptions, when "e" is the only vowel in a very short word. In this case, it is read as in the English alphabet: . These six English words are as follows: be - to be, he - he, me - me, me, me, we - we, she [∫i:] - she, the [ði:] before a vowel sound, [ðə] before a consonant sound - definite article.
So why do we need the letter “e” at the end of words in English if it doesn’t have a sound? Having dealt with this, you can make it easier for yourself to read English words. It turns out that she does a lot of different useful things.
Some useful things that involve the silent English “e” are:
1) to open the previous syllable (open syllables in English are those ending with a vowel; the rule for reading the vowel in a syllable depends on this). It can add one or two consonants from the previous syllable. For example: one consonant: make, ma | ke - to do; two consonants: taste, ta | ste - taste. But if the previous syllable contains 3 consonants, then the syllable remains closed. For example: cattle, cat | tle - cattle;
2) to distinguish an ary open syllable from an ary closed one (arry in English are syllables in which the vowel is followed by the letter “r”; the name of the syllables is based on the sound of this letter). Compare how the sound of the letters “a”, “e” changes depending on the openness of the ary syllable: closed syllable: car - car and open syllable care - care, attention, closed syllable: her - her and open syllable: here - here;
3) so that the English letters “c” and “g” are read as in the alphabet: “s” [s], since - since, since; "g", bridge - bridge; in this case, the first syllable is not opened (since the silent “e” in this case has already been used for another rule); only in the combination “-ange” the syllable is open, for example: change - change, dangerous [‘deındʒərəs] - dangerous;
4) to avoid the letter “s” at the end of a word when it is not the ending of English plural nouns or the ending of an English verb in the 3rd person singular present tense: sense - meaning; in this case, the first syllable is not opened (since the silent “e” in this case has already been used for another rule);
5) so that the English letter “v” does not end up at the end of the word. In this case, the previous syllable can be either closed or open, it is not known in advance: lives - lives, lives - lives; have - have, behave, be | ha | ve - behave. Even in the abbreviated form of the verb have: “’ve” (I’ve done it.), the letter “v” is accompanied by a silent “e”. Only Russian surnames starting with “-ov” are written without a silent “e” during transliteration: Krasnov, Zaitsev, sometimes “v” is replaced with two “f”: Raspopoff;
6) to distinguish between words with the same root, often a noun and a verb (and at the same time open the first syllable): bath - bath, bathe - swim, breath - breathing, breathe - breathe, strip - strip, stripe - to draw stripes;
7) to observe some traditions of writing words, for example: die - die, dye - paint, check - check, machine - machine. Along the way, the silent English “e” denotes the end of the root of a word when adding suffixes and endings to the root: care - care, attention, careful [‘keəful] - attentive, careless [‘keəlıs] - inattentive, careless; courage [‘kʌrıdʒ] - courage, courageous [‘kʌrıdʒəs] - brave; like - like, similar, likely [‘laıklı] - likely, probably; line - line, lines - lines; move - to move, moves - moves, moved - moved, movement [‘mu:vmənt] - movement.
The letter Ee in English is read in different ways in different words. If you don’t know the rules of reading, you can constantly get confused and pronounce sounds in words incorrectly, which will lead to misunderstanding by your interlocutor. If you memorize all the words with the letter E, a whole lifetime will not be enough, and it also threatens confusion. Why don't they teach children to read in English at school? After all, in Russian language lessons we learn the rules of reading! But in English, no... It’s strange. Well, okay, let's figure it out.
So in the English language there are 4 types of reading vowels, they are called: I, II, III, IV with the word “type”))) The first two are already known to us (you can read what they are by following the link). The third type is vowel + R (ar, er, ir, or, ur), and the fourth type is vowel + RE (-are-, -ere-, -ire-, -ore-, -ure-, -yre-)
So, Letter Ee in English. Reading this letter is one of the most confusing, since there are many combinations where the letter is read according to special rules or exceptions.
1. In an open syllable, the letter Ee is read the same as in the alphabet: :
There are a lot of exceptions to this unfortunate rule, and more often in an open syllable, if there are other letters, the letter Ee is read as short [i]: because, before.
2. In a closed syllable everything is simpler. Here it reads like [e], but only under stress. Unstressed is read differently.
3. Letter combination - er - , -er.
In unstressed syllables we read [ə]:bett er, sist er broth er, lat er, clever er,swimm er, driv er, cook er
There are many such words in short words. good-bett er- the best and in nouns derived from verbs - run - runner - to run - runn er
Under stress reads like [ɜ:]: her - her, ver b - verb, ser ve - to serve, ner vous - nervous, per fect - ideal.
4. The fourth type is the combination E+re: Reads like: here- Here.
Exceptions: wh ere - where, where,th ere - there, there. Here it reads as
5.ea = [e] In combination ea, followed by ( d, th, lth, sure, sant):
br ea d, h ea d, inst ea d,r ea dy, br ea th,w ea ther, m ea sure, pl ea sure, pl ea sant
6. ea= read in words:
7. Not readable:
Letter II it's not called for nothing
- “AY”, that’s how it’s read, but... not always.
And the English short sound [i]- “I” is written like a printed lowercase letter for a reason i. Letter II can be read [i].
Reading the letter II in open and closed syllables and letter combinations igh:
*** The reading of English vowels is influenced by the other letters that make up the word (see). How a letter or combination of letters in an English word is read is precisely shown by transcription signs - icons inside square brackets.
Here are examples open syllable, after the letter i there are no other letters, and it is readable :
One letter word I always written with a capital letter and read = "AY" - this is the pronoun "I"
hi- - "hi" - hello
Closed syllable, after a vowel i there is a consonant that “closes” the vowel, making the syllable closed. Letter i read [i]:
big- "BIG" - big
pin- "PIN" - pin
But if you add a vowel at the end of such a word, for example, a silent letter e, the syllable will be open:
pine- "PINE" - pine
Vowel e at the end of such words it is not readable, but forms a second syllable. The first stressed syllable is open:
Read:
The letter combination igh reads:
h igh- high
h igh t - height
l igh t - light
n igh t - night
br igh t - bright
...
*** Remember the letter combination gh( t) - "GHS (ti)". It also occurs with other vowels, for example:
dau ght er ["dɔ:tə] - daughter
lau gh- laugh
bou ght- bought
bou gh- bitches
plou gh- (British) plow (American, plow)
borou gh[ˈbʌrə] - (small) city, ...
and [i]!!!
Have you memorized the transcription signs? ("AY") and [i]("AND") ! ?
