One of the challenges of learning English as a Second Language is English’s uses of silent letters. Most students learn the most common silent letters like the “k” at the beginning of knot (pronounced “not”).or knee (“nee”).
The trickier ones are words that have embedded silent letters (letters within a word). Common mispronounced words are ISLAND (pronounced “iland”) and ANSWER (pronounced “anser”).
Island is mispronounced Iceland, so I tell students that Iceland is a country west of English that is on an island (silent “s”). Students also say ANSWER with the “sw” pronounced like the “sw” in swerve. I make a point to tell them that I don’t know (another silent “k”) why the letters are there but we are talking about English.
English, the language with a lot of rules…many rules that don’t always apply.
