Silent letters tricky cases

The basic silent-letter patterns — the k in knee, the b in comb, the t in castle — cover a lot of ground, but some of the most common silent letters sit in trickier places: the h in which and what, the w in whole, and the silent first letters of write and gnome. These are the cases where learners (and native spellers) get confused, because the silent letter hangs at the very start or inside a question word they use constantly. This guide collects the tricky cases from the silent letters overview and adds what the basic rules omit: which letters are silent only in some accents, and how silent letters come back to life in related words.

In the question words which, what, why, where and when, the h is silent: which is pronounced exactly like the unrelated word witch, what like "wot", why like "wye". For almost all modern speakers the wh- question words and their w-only twins are homophones — which/witch, wear/where, wine/whine — which the homophones guide lists among its pairs. A minority of speakers — notably in Scotland, Ireland and parts of the American South — still pronounce the /hw/ of which distinctly, so you may hear the distinction, but you will not be misunderstood without it. To sound natural in most English, say which exactly like witch.

Before o, the pattern flips: the w is silent and the h is pronounced, so who is "hoo", whose is "hooz", whole is "hole" and whom is "hoom". This makes whole a homophone of hole, and who/whose roughly the h-words of the set. The rule of thumb: wh- before a, e, i and y = w sound with silent h; wh- before o = h sound with silent w. Two little families, one flipped pair — that is the whole system.

wr- — the w is silent:

kn- — the k is silent:

gn- — the g is silent:

These three clusters are the ghost consonants: English lost the ability to start a word with two consonants of this kind around the seventeenth century, and the first letter was dropped from speech but not from spelling — the same story as the silent p in psychology. Write is "rite" (a homophone of right and rite ), knee is "nee", gnome is "nome". The silent k guide is devoted to the kn- family, which also includes the silent gh of knight — two silent letters in one word.

A handful of everyday words begin with a silent h: hour is "our", honest is "ON-est", honour is "ON-er" and heir is "air". Having a silent first letter has a grammatical consequence: these words take "an", not "a" — "an hour", "an honest man" — because the article follows the sound, and the sound starts with a vowel. The the vs thee guide explains this sound-based rule, which also handles "an honour" and why "a university" uses a despite the u. Note the contrast with herb : the h is silent in American English ("erb") but pronounced in British English ("herb") — a silent letter that depends entirely on which side of the Atlantic you stand on.

Whenever a silent letter sits beside another consonant, adding a vowel can make it pronounceable again. That is why the g is silent in sign but spoken in signature , the b silent in bomb but heard in bombard , the c silent in muscle but clear in muscular , and the n silent in column but sounded in columnist . If you know one member of a family, you can usually predict the other: silent at the edge of a word, sounded when a vowel follows. For the accent dimension of all of this — which letters are silent only in British, American or other varieties — the accent comparison guide is the best single resource on the site.

Read slowly first. Pronounce each syllable deliberately before trying to blend them at full speed. Rushing hides the vowel and consonant shapes your ear needs to learn.

Record yourself. Most phones have a voice memo app — record a word, then compare it to the playback here. Hearing the gap between your version and the model accent makes targeted practice far easier.

Focus on one accent. Jumping between American, British and Australian in the same session creates confusion. Pick the accent you encounter most and stick with it until the patterns feel natural.

Every word above is a button. Set the accent and voice you want on the main screen, then come back — the guides use whatever you chose. To hear two accents against each other, use Compare; to test whether you can actually hear a contrast, use the listening quiz.