Silent letters

English has lots of ‘silent letters’ and some of them are not so hard to remember.

The ‘K’ before ‘n’ (e.g., ‘know’) you probably know already… but what about the knight who was waiting for the night’? Take a look at the examples below – sound familiar!?

    ‘B’ after ‘m’ (e.g., ‘thumb’ or ‘plumber’)

    ‘G’ before ‘n’ (e.g., ‘gnome’ or ‘sign’)

    ‘N’ after ‘m’ (e.g., ‘hymn’ or ‘autumn’)

    ‘P’ is usually silent before ‘s’, ‘t’ and ‘n’ (e.g., ‘psychic’, ‘receipt’ or ‘pneumonia’)

    ‘W’ before ‘r’, such as in ‘write’, ‘wrap’ or ‘wrong’

    ‘T’ is often silent after an ‘s’ (e.g., ‘castle’ or ‘listen’), but it is also silent in words like ‘mortgage’ or ‘soften’.

Feel free to add your own examples!