The most used letter in written English is the letter "e". In spoken English the sound heard most often is "uh" or the muted vowel. One simple example is the "above", which is spoken as "uh buv". In addition to the muted vower, notice that the "e" at the end of "above" is silent and unpronounced. That happens quite often in spoken English, but the letter "e" continues to be required in correctly written English.

Here is a table of more examples in which the muted vowel is depicted in bold font. Notice that we have put a space to show the syllables in the word:

The table, click on the picture, offers even more examples of the muted vowel, "uh", which is depicted as a special symbol, a bit like a modified alpha character, ∂.

A few more odd rules for spoken English appear in the table above. The letter "c" can be spoken as "see" in the first syllable of "cir cus" and k in the second vowel.

Vowel & Consonant Sounds

The sound of the muted vowel, "uh" sound, is not included in the following table.

There are six vowels in English, a, e, i, o, u and y. Each of them has a different sound depending on it's location in a word and the letters preceding as well as the consonant following. When a vowel is next to another vowel, it may be different again as we will see when we discuss the combination of vowels in a word.

The pronunciations of vowel sounds are as follows:

17 Vowel Sounds Keyword Symbol

• Snack – short á

• Cake – long ä

• Star – long â

• Pin – short ì

• Speed - long ë

• Light - long ï

• Best - short è

• Chair - long êr

• Rock – short ò

• Gold – long ö

• Door – long ô

• Boy – long oi

• Cup - short ù

• Cool – long ü like lu

• Foot - long û

• Out – short ou

• New - long yü like yu

"e" is the most frequently used letter in the English language. It is also silent often in that it is used when writing a word, but is not pronounced when the word is spoken.

For example in the word "used", the "e" is silent, but it's presence makes the "u" long instead of short.

Mostly, the "e" is silent when it occurs at the end of a word, such as "wince", "lance", "hope" or "stare". Notice again that putting the "e" on the end of the word makes the previous vowel long instead of short, "höpe" rather than " hòp".

Consonant sounds

The following are consonants (b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, and z).

And here is how they usually sound in spoken English:

b sounds like bee

c sounds like see except when it's pronounced as k as in circus pronounced surkus.

d sounds like dee

f sounds like eff

g sounds like gee

h sounds like aitch

j sounds like jay

k sounds like k in okay

l sounds like ell

m sounds like em

n sounds like en'

p sounds like pee

q sounds like cue

r sounds like are

s sounds like ess

t sounds like tee

v sounds like vee

w sounds like doubleu

x sounds like eks

z sounds like zed in zebra or zee zealand

We also recommend the following consonant sounds.

7 Consonant Sounds

• Rush - long sh like mandarin xiao

• Chat – short tch like qi

• String – short ng

• Jeans – short dj

• Vision – short jh like zh

• Thank – short th

• They - short dh

We cannot repeat often enough that constant practice of these sounds is the main foundation that you need to speak "better English". Once you have done that you will begin to understand English better.

In the table below we apply these sounds to a variety of words. Notice the special character for the Muted Vowel, as well as the space to indicate syllables in each word. Syll uh bl accentuation is the next pronunctiation rule that you will learn.