Jose Pablo Corrales, a BIN-02 student (3rd Quarter-2010), had the following doubts in regards to some word spellings.
Words ending in “ugh”
We can state that this particular ending is pronounced as an /f/-sound. And that is necessary to keep in mind when learning words like the following:
1. enough
2. laugh
3. tough
4. rough
5. cough
But be careful when this word ending additionally contains a –t = “ght.” In this particular situation, the sequence of “gh” becomes mute; it is not pronounced at all. Just the /t/-sound will be pronounced.
1. light
2. caught
3. bright
4. fought
5. taught
Words beginning with “kn” like in “knight”
There is a group of words in English that begins with the letter sequence “kn,” in which the “k” is a silent letter. That is, in the spelling sequence “kn,” it is just the /n/ that gets to be pronounced.
1. knee
2. kneel
3. knife
4. knob
5. knock
Letter “j” and the spelling sequence “ge” or “dge”
Letter “j” gets to be pronounced like /dʒ/. Except for foreign names or words such as Juan, usually coming from Spanish, the “j” is never pronounced as /h/.
1. jack
2. jacuzzi
3. jaguar
4. jaw
5. jelly
On the other hand, the letter sequences “ge” and “dge” are almost always pronounced like /dʒ/.
| -ge = /dʒ/ | -dge = /dʒ/ |
| age | judge |
| page | cartridge |
| engage | bridge |
| package | pledge |
| savage | fridge |
