6 Minute Vocabulary - Silent letters

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Now back to six minute vocabulary , six minute vocabulary from BBC Learning English . Hello and welcome to Six Minute Vocabulary . I'm Catherine , and I'm Rob . In today's show , we're going to look at a very important part of spoken and written vocabulary . Silent letters . Yes , silent letters . We'll look at what they are , where they appear and how to say them . There'll be a quiz and we'll leave you with a top tip for learning vocabulary . But first , let's listen to Nick . He's the doctors . And it's not good news . No , it's not . While you listen , try and answer this question . What treatment does the doctor suggest for Nick ? Take a seat . What seems to be the problem ? It's my wrist . It really hurts . Let's see if we can work out what's wrong . Do you have a pain anywhere else ? What about your elbows and knees ? No , they're fine . But I can't move my thumb and I don't know why . Well , have you done anything physically demanding recently ? I did play tennis yesterday . You've probably just got a pulled muscle you'll just have to rest your wrist . No playing tennis for a while , I'm afraid . So we asked you , what treatment did the doctor suggest ? And the answer is he told Nick to rest his wrist . He did . Well done . If you got that right now , wrist , that's a bit of your body that joins your arm to your hand is an example of the vocabulary area we're looking at today . And that's words with silent letters , Rob . Yes , that's right . We spell this word wrist r i . S t , but when we say it , we don't pronounce the first letter W were . Instead we start the sound from the second letter in the words , which is the letter R pronounced . OK , and let's listen to it again . It's my wrist . It really hurts . There we are . We don't say were rest , we say wrist , wrist and some other words that start with a silent w rob right . That's w i t e like to write a letter and wrong w r o n g meaning not correct . In fact , there's a rule here , which is we don't usually pronounce the W in words that begin W are . So Catherine , when did you last write a letter . I wrote a letter on paper . I really don't know Rob , to be honest . It's all email for me now . . Good idea with your handwriting . Probably now next another word with a silent letter , but I can't move my thumb and I don't know why the word was no meaning to recognize and understand something . It's spelt k n o w . But we don't say the letter K , so it isn't . , but no , it's no . So that's another rule . We don't usually say the K in words that begin with K and for example , the joint between your upper and lower leg . And , the tool we use to cut things so knee and knife start with silent K . Excellent . Right now also said a word with a silent letter at the end . Yes . He talked about a body part on your hand . You have four fingers and your thumb that sticks out the other way . That's thumb spelled t h u m b . But we don't pronounce final B , we don't say thumb , but we say thumb , rob thumb . We do . That's right . Some other words with a silent B at the end are clim like to climb a ladder and a baby sheep . Hmm . Do you like lamb Catherine . I do like lamb . I like lambs . Well when they're alive and I also have to say I quite like eating them . Oh right . Oh six minutes from BBC Learning English and it's time for a quiz . Count the silent letters in these sentences . No . One , there's something wrong with my wrist and the answer is to wrong and both the game with a silent W . Very good sentence . Number two , I don't know why my thumb hurts and the answer is to again , no starts with a silent K and thumb ends with a silent B . It does . And here's the last one . No , I can't climb up there because I've hurt my knee . Huh . Well , Climb has a silent B at the end and knee starts with a silent K , but the word no at the beginning of a sentence is the opposite of yes . So it's spelt and OK . So the answer is there are two words with silent letters in this sentence and it's very well done to you if you got those right . Now , that brings us almost to the end of today's program . And before we go , here's today's Top Tips for learning and recording vocabulary . When you learn a word and you know it's got a silent letter marked the silent letter very clearly in your vocabulary notebook . That way you won't forget how to say it . Thank you . I know what to do now . Yeah , very good . There's more about this ABC Learning English dot com and join us again soon for more six minutes vocabulary . Bye bye bye .