Shadowing Practice: You've been saying these words wrong your entire life. - Learn English Speaking with Video
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do not pronounce these letters at the ends of words in english we all know
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that english is so annoying the way a word is written
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and the way a word is pronounced can be two very different things
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that is why i've created this lesson to make life easier
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for you today we're focusing on silent letters at the end
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of words i am going to teach you the rules so
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that you can identify silent letters
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and pronounce words more clearly remember i'm teaching my pronunciation of
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these words i speak english with a modern received pronunciation accent and
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if you want an accent like mine i think you'll be
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interested in my five day british accent boot camp it's five
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days of five focused pronunciation lessons each day is really practical and full of interactive exercises to help you master vowel sounds,
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consonant clarity and the way British English naturally flows from word to word.
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At the moment, I am offering two things.
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One, a huge discount and two, lifetime access.
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I know these two things are very important to my students.
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To learn more and join, click on the link in the description box or scan that QR code there.
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I will see you inside.
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Let's begin with the letter B, the silent B.
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Do any come to mind?
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Well, they all end with MB.
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Words like, and repeat after me, bomb, comb, and climb.
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We don't say bomb, comb, or climb.
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The letter B is completely silent, so each of these words ends with a m sound.
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Bomb, comb, climb.
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Here are some more examples.
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We have tomb with the long oo sound.
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Womb, again with the long oo.
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Lamb with the short a vowel sound.
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And And limb with the short i sound.
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We also have a few words with the uh vowel sound, as in up.
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For example, and repeat after me,
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crumb, numb, thumb, dumb, and succumb.
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Notice the stress on the second syllable there, succumb.
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And finally, one more actually, plumb.
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Now, plumb is a word that I hear mispronounced all the time.
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What do we call a person who fixes water pipes?
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A person who plums, right?
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A plumber.
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Plumber.
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The B stays silent, even when we add the letters ER.
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So it's plumber, not plumber.
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In fact, the letter B usually stays silent if we add a suffix to these words.
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For example, bomb, bomber.
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Climb, climbing.
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We do have to be careful though because sometimes the B sound does come back when we add a suffix.
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For example, crumb, crumble, crumbling, and bomb, bombardment.
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Oh, and I have one last silent B word for you.
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Now, I know the letter B isn't strictly at the end, but students make mistakes with this all the time.
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It's this word.
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Doubt.
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Never pronounce the B here.
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Doubt, not doubted which is hard to say.
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It's much easier to say without the b.
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Doubt.
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Let's move on to the silent e at the end of words.
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What do all of these words have in common?
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Well, the e that appears at the end of these words isn't exactly silent.
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It's magic.
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Yeah, this e can have magical powers we do genuinely call it the magic E.
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It changes the vowel sound before it, so it's pronounced like the letter of the alphabet,
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as in A, E, I, O, and U.
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Notice how the vowel sound changes is when we add an E to these words.
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Tap, tape, hid, hide, rob, robe, cub,
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cube.
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Now, the magic E doesn't always work, but treat it as a guide.
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It can help you figure out the pronunciation of many words that end with E.
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Now, the E has no magical powers with these next words.
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Never pronounce the E at the end of VE words like have, love, and give.
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ME words normally have a silent E too.
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For example, welcome and handsome.
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Now notice the silent D in the middle there, handsome, not hand -some.
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Be careful with these exceptions though.
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Epitome and gimme, the informal contraction of give me, both end in E.
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There's also this word that causes a lot of confusion.
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What do we call the instructions you use to help you cook something?
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It's a recipe, not receipt or recite.
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Another exception is the word anime, which ends with the A diphthong.
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Next, we have the silent H at the end of words.
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In In English, the H sound can't come at the end of a word.
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The letters A -H are usually just pronounced as a schwa.
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Like in the names Sarah, Hannah, Noah and Mika.
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The H is silent.
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We can also see this A -H combination at the end of words like hurrah and cheetah.
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You'll also see quite a few words ending in the letters C, H.
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Here, the H isn't technically silent.
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Instead, it combines with the letter C to make a k sound,
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like in stomach, patriarch, and monarch.
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Interestingly, all of these words have come to English via Latin from Greek.
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Next, we have the silent N.
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Never pronounce the letter N at the end of words like dam,
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hymn, solemn, condemn, autumn, and column.
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These words all end in the letters MN but just finish with a mm sound.
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And remember, be careful when adding a suffix to these words because sometimes the silent N reappears.
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For example, autumn, autumnal.
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Column, columnist.
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Although a lot of people prefer to just say columnist.
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It's technically columnist, but columnist is very common.
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Use whichever works best for you.
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There's only one word that ends with a silent P and it's a word with French origins.
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Coup.
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Coup.
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It's also silent in the phrase coup d 'etat.
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Notice the silent T at the end there too.
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More on silent T's soon.
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Let's practice the silent H, N and P words now.
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Shadow me or listen, pause and repeat after me.
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Sarah wrote a solemn column this autumn, condemning the Patriarch's coup d 'etat.
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Did you notice the silent T at the end of coup d 'etat?
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More on that soon.
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Now for the silent R at the end of words.
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Well, in my modern received pronunciation accent, all R's are silent at the end of words like in guitar tower
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and armor i only pronounce the letter r before a vowel sound
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i've made a whole video on this i've put a link in the description check it out
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if you're still not sure about the silent r next up
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is the silent s at the end of words we have a few words from French that end in a silent S.
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We have a few nouns like debris or daybri, corps, faux pas, and rendezvous.
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Take care with these nouns.
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Even though debris ends with a silent S, it's an uncountable noun.
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Corps, faux pas, and rendezvous are all countable, but don't change their spelling in the plural.
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But we do pronounce the S when they're plural, and each plural is pronounced with the voiced zz sound,
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cause, faux pas, and rendezvous.
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We've also got the preposition vis -a -vis, meaning in relation to, and the US states Illinois and Arkansas.
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Never pronounce the S at the end of these words.
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Let's look at some silent T words now.
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Continuing with the French theme,
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never pronounce the letter T at the end of these words ballet gourmet buffet i hear these words pronounced ballot
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and buffet all the time but the t is silent
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so the word ends in the a vowel sound ballet gourmet
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buffet some people do choose to pronounce the t in buffet
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buffet uh it's not very common you will find it in some dictionaries Some more A words are crochet and chalet.
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And then we also have depot and rapport.
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Time to practise the silent R, S and T at the end of words.
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Shadow me or repeat after me.
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The ballet dancer from Arkansas made a faux pas when he forgot to prepare gourmet sandwiches for the buffet.
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We don't really have any silent U words, but we do have a lot of words ending in a silent UE.
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Words like league and colleague,
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rogue and vague, also catalogue and dialogue.
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In these words, the letters G and U combine to make a G sound.
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The letters UE are silent, so they all end with a G sound.
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In fact, catalogue and dialogue both end with the letter G in North American spelling, just like this.
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We also have tongue that ends with the NG sound, tongue.
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we have a couple of words with a silent x at
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the end shoe yes it sounds like a shoe you put on your foot
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but this is a kind of pastry faux as in fake
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and faux pas and you guessed it they are french
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and finally just one silent zed word shay shay this is
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another french word we use in english meaning at the house of.
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Let's practice those silent letters now.
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Shadow me or repeat after me.
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She thanked her colleague for the shoe pastry with a faux smile.
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Right, my lovely students, that brings us to the end of today's pronunciation lesson.
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Were there any silent letters here that surprised you?
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Let me know in the comments.
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Don't forget to join my five -day British accent bootcamp.
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Over 1 ,000 students have participated and their feedback has been amazing.
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Remember, we are offering a huge discount and lifetime access.
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The link to join is in the description box or you can scan that QR code here.
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I will see you soon for another lesson.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 159 sentences and 1617 words to shadow. The speech runs for 13:21. The speaker talks at a steady 121 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 72% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| silent adjective | /ˈsaɪ̯lənt/ | Free from sound or noise; absolutely still; perfectly quiet. |
| pronounce verb | /pɹəˈnaʊns/ | To declare formally, officially or ceremoniously. |
| litter noun | /ˈlɪt.ɚ/ | Straw, grass, and similar loose material used as bedding for people or animals. |
| faux adjective | /foʊ/ | Fake or artificial. |
| buffet noun | /bəˈfeɪ/ | A counter or sideboard from which food and drinks are served or may be bought. |
| pronunciation noun | /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/ | The formal or informal way in which a word is made to sound when spoken. |
| climb verb | /ˈklaɪ̯m/ | To traverse a slope or contour, either upwards (ascending) or downwards (descending). |
| accent noun | /ækˈsɛnt/ | A higher-pitched or stronger (louder or longer) articulation of a particular syllable of a word or phrase in order to distinguish it from the others or to… |
| coup noun | /ku/ | A quick, brilliant, and highly successful act. |
| lesson noun | /ˈlɛs.ən/ | A section of learning or teaching into which a wider learning content is divided. |
| columnist noun | /ˈkɑ.ləm.nɪst/ | A regular writer of a column, such as in a magazine or newspaper. |
| shadow noun | /ˈʃædəʊ̯/ | A dark image projected onto a surface where light (or other radiation) is blocked by the shade of an object. |
| column noun | /ˈkɒləm/ | A solid upright structure designed usually to support a larger structure above it, such as a roof or horizontal beam, but sometimes for decoration. |
| autumn noun | /ˈɔtəm/ | Traditionally the third of the four seasons, when deciduous trees lose their leaves, and temperatures and daylight hours decrease; typically regarded as… |
| shoe noun | /ˈʃu/ | A protective covering for the foot, with a bottom part composed of thick leather or plastic sole and often a thicker heel, and a softer upper part made of… |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| come back verb | To return to a place. |
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 20 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, I've, isn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: thumb /ˈθʌm/, diphthong /ˈdɪpˌθɔŋ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: pronunciation /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/, shadow /ˈʃædəʊ̯/, shoe /ˈʃu/, exception /əkˈsɛpʃən/, relation /ɹɪˈleɪʃ(ə)n/
- Long words — get the stress right: pronunciation /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/, technically /ˈtɛk.nɪˌkəl.i/, naturally /ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.li/, participate /pɑːˈtɪs.ɪ.peɪt/, genuinely /ˈd͡ʒɛn.ju.ɪn.li/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like silent, pronounce, litter.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | i've created · have come · i've made |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is written · is pronounced · are usually just pronounced |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | person who fixes · person who plums · doubted which is |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.