Silent letters and unstressed vowels

SILENT letters and unstressed vowels – you cannot hear them. But they are there. Some words have silent letters. Silent letters are letters which you do not hear.

Words with silent letters are tricky to spell because you cannot hear all the letters when you say the word. This means you might miss letters out if you are not careful.

Learn the correct spelling of these words. Here are some common examples of words with silent letters. There are many words which have them, but these listed here are the main ones: Words with a silent ‘h’: which, whether, when, while, chemist, and white. Words with a silent “b”: lamb, womb, debt, tomb, subtle and doubt.

Words with a silent “w”: write, whole, wrong, two, answer, and who. Words with a silent “k”: kneel, knife, knight, knot know, and knowledge. Words with a silent “c”: scene, science, conscience, scent, disciple and descent. Words with a silent “t”: listen, castle, Christmas, tsar. Words with a silent “l”: half, could, would and should.

Words with double letters can be tricky. These are hard to spell because you say double letters in a single sound. This means the second doubled letter is like a silent letter because you cannot hear it. The only thing you can do to remember how to spell these words is to learn them: Here are some examples of these words: address, association, accommodation, embarrass, appalling, different, disappear, essential and eventually.

Immediately, exaggerate, irresistible, jewellery, necessary, occasion, possess, succeed, and success. There is no rule for spelling words with unstressed vowels – you just have to learn how to spell them.
Here are some useful examples: definitely, ridiculous, interference, difference, government, general, describe and company.

Now we turn to words which are commonly confused. Make sure you learn the difference between these words.

Plenty of practice is a good start. “Always” and “Altogether” are adverbs. Remember an adverb is defined in various ways. An adverb is a word or phrase that modifies or qualifies an adjective, verb or other adverb or a word group expressing a relation of place, time, circumstance, manner, cause, degree, frequency or level of certainty.

Here are some examples: gently, quite, then, there, slowly, fast, easily, weekly, quietly. Adverbs answer questions like when: today, soon, later, now, tonight, then, early, often, usually, yearly, seldom, rarely.

Where, how, when, questions fall under adverbs. Questions such as how? In what way? What extent?
Always and altogether are spelt a one word. Do not confuse them with “all ways” and ‘all together.”

“Always” means at all times, but all ways means every way or the total number of methods. Nomathemba is always smart. All ways leading to the shops are blocked. Nomathemba is smart all the time. Every way or route is blocked.

Altogether means completely or in total. All together means at the same time, in the same place or in a group. He has three degrees altogether. This is the number of degrees in total. I am altogether tired.

This means completely tired. Let’s sing all together. This means let’s sing all at the same time.

“Into” is a preposition or part of a verb. Remember a preposition is a word which tells you how things are related. For example: in, above, before, under, or to. Into is a preposition which shows that something is moving towards the inside of something.

The chicken ran into the fowl run. This example shows the direction of the chicken. If you can replace “into” with the word inside and it still makes sense, you are using it correctly.

“Into” is also part of the verb to turn into. He turned the water into wine. “In “and “to” are spelt as two separate words when the ‘to” belongs to a verb. The came in to look around. “to” belongs to the verb “look”. It is part of an infinitive verb.

An infinitive verb is the most basic form of the verb with the word “to” in front of it. For example, to jump, to sit, see, to smile. (The basic part of the verb which you find listed in a dictionary.

In and to can be spelt as two separate words when the “to” is a preposition. This sentence means she gave her handbag to her sister. She turned her handbag in to her sister. If you used “into” by mistake, the sentence would mean something completely different – that the handbag was transformed into her sister.

Licence and license are like practice and practise. License is a verb – it is spelt with an “s”. Some drivers are licensed to drive buses. During the economic crisis some shops were licensed to sell their goods in foreign currency.

Licence is a noun – it is spelt with a “c”. Before you can be fully licensed you should first of all have a provisional drivers’ licence. This shop has a licence to sell alcohol as well. Note that these are just pointers to the larger picture whereby a lot of words are mixed up. Learn them so that you are not confused in the examinations.

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