1
Say c and g from the letter after them
C before e, i or y is said as s, and the ten common words where g breaks the matching rule are a list you can learn.
Course · English
Spelling to Sound
Every student is given rules for how a spelling is said, and few are told how often each rule is right. This course takes five of them, runs each on the 2,800 words of the list, checks it against a dictionary that records how the word is said, and prints the score and every word the rule gets wrong.
a rule, its score, and the words it misses
c before e, i, y says s 348 of 348
g before e, i, y says j 177 of 187
silent e, vowel says name 131 of 140
i before e, except after c 36 of 58
What this course is about
- Subject
- English
- Lessons
- 5
- Format
- Interactive
Overview
What you will be able to do
By the end you can say a new word from its spelling with a number behind each guess, and name the words that break each rule.
2
Use the silent e and know its nine breaks
The vowel says its name, except in have, give, come, some, love, none, lose, move and prove.
3
Quote a score for i before e
36 of 58 words, and the three groups that all 22 failures fall into.
4
Name the letters you do not say
Five rules for silent letters, and the one group, ough, that has no rule at all.
5
Say four common endings from their letters
-tion, -ture and -cial are each said one way in nearly every word that has them, and -sion is said one of two ways, chosen by the letter before it.
6
Tell a rule from a habit
A rule you can score and a list of misses you can read is worth keeping. A rule with a long list of misses is a habit.
Lessons
5 lessons
Letters first, because one letter and one sound is the simplest case. Then the famous rule and its score. Then letters that are not said at all, and last the endings that are always said the same way.
C and G Before E, I and YOne of these two rules is right every time it can be tried. The other fails on ten common words.Not marked
The Silent E and the Vowel's NameA word that ends vowel, consonant, e says its vowel as its name. Nine common words do not.Not marked
I Before E, and Its Failure RateThe best known rule of English spelling is right on 36 of 58 common words.Not marked
Letters You Do Not SayEnglish spells letters it does not say, and three of four groups follow a rule you can count.Not marked
-tion, -sion and -tureThree endings said one way in nearly every word, and one said two ways by the letter before it. Six words break a rule.Not marked
Recommended background
No other course on this site is needed before this one. The only sums are counting and working out a share. The sounds are written as plain words such as “shun” and “chur”, so you do not need to read any sound symbols.
Practice suggestions
Say the rule out loud, then say the word, before you look at the table. If you hear that the rule is wrong, find the word in the misses.
Switch the list from the misses to every word. The words the rule gets right are the evidence that it is worth learning.
Read the words that were set aside. A score is honest only if you know which words it was not tried on and why.
What it does not cover
How a word is said in British or any other speech. The page reads the first way one American dictionary gives, and it cannot tell you how the word sounds in your country or in any other.
Where the strong part of a word falls. That is the next sound course, Word Stress, and it needs what this course teaches about the sounds themselves.
Every spelling rule. Five rules were chosen because each can be scored on a list of whole words. A rule that depends on meaning cannot be scored this way.