Tim先生の One-Point Lesson #12

Silent "e"

Hello everyone!

Continuing from last weeks lesson, today we will think about a special kind of silent letter. That is, the special silent 'e' at the end of a word.

As I said last week, many letters have become silent simply because they come from an older way of pronouncing the word, such as the 'k' in 'knife'. The silent 'e' is a bit different, because even though it is completely silent, it makes a big change to the pronunciation of the word.

Think about my name: Tim.
Now think about the word 'time'.

You can't hear any 'e' sound in either word. The 'e' in 'time' is completely silent. However, it has changed the pronunciation of the other vowel.

Think about the five vowels: A, E, I, O, U. In Japanese, the sound of the vowels and the NAME of the vowels is the same. In English, however, they have NAMES as well as sounds they can make. Those names are: A as in HEY, E as in HE, I as in PIE, O as in GO, and U as in YOU.

Those names are different from the sounds the vowels usually make, which are usually like this: A as in Apple, E as in Egg, I as in Interest, O as in pOt, and U as in pUt.

The function of the silent 'e' is to change the main vowel in the word from the usual vowel sound to the vowel NAME.

Lets look at some examples:

mad > made
pet > Pete (a mans name)
bit > bite
not > note
cub > cube

This rule of spelling is VERY common in English. You probably read hundreds of silent 'e' words every day without even thinking about it. Try to find some other examples in this lesson!

JUST REMEMBER: not every silent 'e' works this way. Like all rules, there are some exceptions, such as 'have', 'done', 'give' and 'love'. However, most of the time the silent 'e' is a special vowel - changing 'e'.

See you next week!
-Tim

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