Sources: https://curiosity.com/topics/why-are-there-silent-letters-in-english-curiosity/ https://www.myenglishteacher.eu/blog/list-of-words-with-silent-letters-in-english/

1. Hello!

2. Please read the following words:
what
two
thumb
castle
island
lamb

3. Why Are There Silent
Letters in English?
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4. The English language is famous for having rules that don't make sense,
and the rules of spelling and pronunciation are no exemption. Some
letters are pronounced, some aren't, and there's no real system for
figuring out when to pronounce and when not to. In fact, more than half
of the letters in our alphabet are silent in some words, and that's a
conservative estimate.
Silent letters confuse English language learners of all ages, and native
speakers can't even explain why they're there. It's time that we get to the
bottom of this spelling and pronunciation mystery.
Ghosts of Other Languages
The English language has been written down for more than a thousand
years, which means it's had plenty of time to borrow and twist around
words from other languages.
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5. For example, consider Greek words like "psychology" and Japanese words
like "tsunami." Because English doesn't have the Greek letter ψ (psi) or
the Japanese character 津 (tsu), we have to improvise with our own
alphabet and spell them out the best we can. But we don't generally use
"ps" or "ts" sounds to start words in English, so instead, many people skip
pronouncing them.
Other words are cognates, or linguistic relatives, of words from other
languages. Knight, with its silent "k" and silent "gh," is related to the
German and Dutch word "knecht," which is pronounced so fully that
it almost sounds like "connect." When in doubt, a good dictionary or
etymology reference can help you figure out which letters might be silent
and which words have roots in German, Latin, Greek, or Japanese.
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6. The E Is Silent
Here's something that will impress at dinner parties: Certain letters in
English are "diacritic," which means they change the pronunciation of
other letters even though they aren't supposed to be pronounced
themselves. Think about the difference between "fat" and "fate" or "hat"
and "hate" or "don" and "done." The "e" on these words is silent, but it
does impact both pronunciation and meaning.
Many of these words also come from other languages. In those languages,
these words often have diacritic marks that change their pronunciation
and help to distinguish between meanings (think about the "n" in "señor"
or the "e" in "cliché"). In English, we just use silent letters to change
pronunciation and meaning.
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7. Wildcard Words
Some spellings were just made up. During the Renaissance, some so-
called "English reformers" decided to change the spellings of some
words as a nod to their fancy Latin origins. For example, the word "debt"
comes from the Latin word "debitum," but the English version didn't have
that silent "b" until the reformers got ahold of it.
Wish as we might, there are no simple rules to explain silent letters in the
English language. It can be fun, however, to go down a Wikipedia rabbit
hole and learn all the linguistic tidbits behind our strange pronunciations.
We've borrowed a little here and adopted a little there, and now we have
a rich language with odd pronunciations. English learners, we're sorry.
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8. Questions
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1.What are some reasons why there are silent letters in English words?
2.Which foreign language do you think has the most number of silent
letters in English words?
3.Can you think of other English words with silent letters?

9. Additional Practice
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Set 1: dumb, comb, bomb, thumb, climb, tomb
Set 2: debt, doubt, debtor, doubtful, subtle
Set 3: muscle, scissors, miscellaneous, fascinate, scenario
Set 4: acquaintance, acknowledge, acquit
Set 5: pledge, dodge, grudge, hedge
Set 6: champagne, foreign, sign, design, align

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