Sometimes it can be embarrassing if you pronounce a silent letter in a word when you’re learning to speak with an English accent. Lots of people do this, because it’s confusing when the word is not said as it’s written!
This is why it’s important to listen over and over to the English accent you want, so you make a ‘recording’ of how it sounds in your head. Then, to speak with an English accent, you can recall how a word should be pronounced from the ‘recording’ in your head. Remember you can’t learn an English accent just from reading words. You need to hear it to reproduce it.
In this English accent training we’re going to learn how to pronounce words with a silent P letter. If you haven’t seen it yet, there’s also a training lesson on words with a silent /h/ in them and a video with more words here.
English Accent- Silent P words
In English when /p/ is before /n/ at the beginning of a word, the /p/ is silent. For example, in the word ‘pneumonia’.
If /p/ is before an /s/ at the beginning of a word, the /p/ is silent. For example, in the word ‘psychology’.
With all the others, you just have to remember them! (Don’t be concerned-there aren’t that many)
Words
pneumonia
pneumatic
pneumatic drill
psychology
psychiatrist
psychic
psychopath
pseudo
pseudonym
psychedelic
psalm
raspberry
cupboard
corps
coup
receipt (be careful of this one- I hear people saying receipt incorrectly a lot of the time, especially in restaurants).
Best wishes, Esther
