{"id":1768,"date":"2025-10-01T18:40:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T18:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/good-worldwide.go-vip.net\/upworthy\/2025\/10\/01\/english-language\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T18:40:00","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T18:40:00","slug":"english-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/goodinc.com\/qa-upworthy\/2025\/10\/01\/english-language\/","title":{"rendered":"British stand-up comic shows what English would sound like if we pronounced silent letters"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the struggles people have with learning English<\/a> as a second language is the number of silent letters our language uses that don’t seem to have much rhyme or reason. We are certainly not alone in using letters we don’t pronounce, of course\u2014French <\/a>is famously filled with them, and Danish words<\/a> apparently make liberal use of them as well. However, there’s no question that silent letters can make language learning<\/a> confusing for non-native speakers (and often for native speakers as well).<\/p>

British comedian Michael McIntyre did a whole bit<\/a> demonstrating what English would sound like if silent letters weren’t silent. What if we pronounced the “b” in “subtle” or the “h” in “hour” or the “l” in “talk” and “walk”? When we start to pronounce the silent letters, we quickly see how many commonly used words have them, and the effect is both eye-opening and hilarious. <\/p>

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