PREFACE

First of all, Thank you to all the Supporters, who supported me to write a book entitled
“SPEAKING ENGLISH FLUENTLY” on time.

The purpose of writing this book is to fulfill one of my duties to spread knowledge to others.

My mind gets a bit of challenges and obstacles but with Support, Suggest and Help, those
obstacles can be overcome. I realize there are still many mistakes in the process of writing this
book, Feel free to Criticism and Suggest. Whole contents i wrote with love and care.

Therefore, I would like to thank all the individuals who have given me some ideas in the
process of writing this book. I also realize that this paper is still not perfect in terms of structure and
content. I hope the criticism from the readers can help me in perfecting the imperfections. Last but
not least, I hope this paper can help readers to increase their knowledge.

Lhokseumawe, June 12th 2021

 TABLE ON CONTENTS

I. Silent Letter

1) Silent Letter A
2) Silent Letter B
3) Silent Letter C
4) Silent Letter D
5) Silent Letter E
6) Silent Letter G
7) Silent Letter H
8) Silent Letter I
9) Silent Letter K
10) Silent Letter L
11) Silent Letter N
12) Silent Letter P
13) Silent Letter S
14) Silent Letter T
15) Silent Letter U
16) Silent Letter W

II. Vowel

1) Long Vowels
2) Short Vowels
3) Common Examples Long Vowels
4) Common Examples Short Vowels
5) R-Controlled Vowels
6) Other English Vowel Sound
7) Vowel Digraphs
8) Exceptions, Dialects, & Help

III. Accents

1) British English

a) R's
b) U's
c) T's
d) Th
e) Heavy Consonants
f) 12 Vowels = 12 Tongue Positions
g) 7 Further Double Vowels
h) No Too Much Stress
i) Intonation
j) Pronounce
 2) American English :

a) T Sound
b) TH Sound
c) B and P Sound
d) R Sound
e) S and 2 Sound
f) Pronounce –Ed Ending
g) Pronounce With Letter H
h) Combinations Letter
i) Linking Vowels
j) Syllable Stress
k) Extra Y Sound
l) Intonation or Rhythm

IV. Differences between British English Accent and American Accent

a) Intonation
b) Vowels
c) Letter R
d) Letter T
e) Shortened Words

V. Closing
 I. Silent Letter

What is a Silent Letter?

Silent letters are letters that we cannot hear when we say a word, but are visible when we
write it down.

a) Silent Letter A
• Artistically
• Logically
• Musically
• Physically
• Critically

b) Silent Letter B
• Aplomb
• Bomb
• Climb
• Comb
• Coulomb
• Crumb
• Debt
• Doubt
• Dumb
• Jamb
• Lamb
• Limb
• Numb
• Plumber
• Subtle
• Succumb
• Thumb
• Tomb
• Womb

c) Silent Letter C
• Abscess
• Ascend
• Ascent
• Conscience
• Conscious
• Crescent
• Descend
• Disciple
• Evanescent
• Fascinate
• Fluorescent
• Muscle
• Obscene
• Resuscitate
• Scenario
• Scene
• Scent
• Science
• Scissors
• Transcend

d) Silent Letter D
• Badge
• Edge
• Handkerchief
• Handsome
• Hedge
• Sandwich
• Wedge
• Wednesday

e) Silent Letter E
• Age
• Breathe
• Bridge
• Change
• Clothes
• Gene
• Hate
• Like
• Love
• Please
• Vegetable

f) Silent Letter G
• Align
• Assign
• Benign
• Campaign
• Champagne
• Cologne
• Consign
• Design
• Feign
• Foreign
• Gnarl
• Gnarly
• Gnome
• Reign
• Resign
• Sign

g) Silent Letter H
• Ache
• Anchor
• Archaeology
• Architect
• Chaos
• Character
• Charisma
• Chemical
• Chlorine
• Choir
• Chord
• Choreograph
• Chrome
• Echo
• Ghost
• Honest
• Hour
• Mechanic
• Monarchy
• Orchestra
• Psychic
• Rhythm
• Scheme
• School
• Stomach
• Tech
• What
• When
• Where
• Whether
• Which
• While
• White
• Why
h) Silent Letter I
• Business
• Parliament

i) Silent Letter K
• Knack
• Knead
• Knee
• Kneel
• Knew
• Knickers
• Knife
• Knight
• Knitting
• Knob
• Knock
• Knot
• Know
• Knowledge
• Knuckle

j) Silent Letter L
• Almond
• Balm
• Calf
• Calm
• Chalk
• Could
• Folk
• Half
• Palm
• Salmon
• Should
• Talk
• Walk
• Would
• Yolk

k) Silent Letter N
• Autumn
• Column
• Damn
• Hymn

l) Silent Letter P
• Coup
• Cupboard
• Pneumonia
• Pseudo
• Psychiatrist
• Psychic
• Psychology
• Psychotherapy
• Psychotic
• Raspberry
• Receipt

m) Silent Letter S
• Aisle
• Island
• Patios

n) Silent Letter T
• Apostle
• Bristle
• Bustle
• Butcher
• Castle
• Christmas
• Fasten
• Glisten
• Hustle
• Listen
• Match
• Moisten
• Mortgage
• Nestle
• Often
• Rustle
• Scratch
• Soften
• Thistle
• Watch
• Whistle
• Witch
• Wrestle

o) Silent Letter U
• Baguette
• Biscuit
• Building
• Circuit
 • Disguise
• Guard
• Guess
• Guest
• Guild
• Guile
• Guilt
• Guitar
• Rogue
• Silhouette
• Tongue
• Vogue

p) Silent Letter W
• Answer
• Awry
• Playwright
• Sword
• Two
• Whole
• Wrack
• Wrap
• Wrapper
• Wrath
• Wreath
• Wreck
• Wreckage
• Wren
• Wrench
• Wrestling
• Wretched
• Wriggle
• Wring
• Wrinkle
• Wrist
• Wrong
• Wrote

II. Vowel

What is a Vowel?
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract.
Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. ... The
word vowel comes from the Latin word vocalis, meaning "vocal" (i.e. relating to the voice).
The English vowels are A, E, I, O, & U. (Sometimes Y is a vowel, pronounced as if it were
I. Sometimes W substitutes for U, especially in the digraph 'ow.') Each vowel can be pronounced in
several ways.

1) Long Vowels
The alphabet sounds (when the vowel “says its name”) are called “long vowels.”
We call them ‘long’ because we hold them slightly longer than the short sounds.
However, they are completely different sounds-- not a longer version of the same sound.
• Long A (ā), pronounced /eɪ/ as in late or mate,
• Long E (ē), pronounced /iː/ as in eat or meat (or meet or mete-- all pronounced the same),
• Long I (ī), pronounced /aɪ/ as in mite or might,
• Long O (ō), pronounced /oʊ/ as in oats, mote or moat, and
• Long U (ū), pronounced /juː/ as in mute or /uː/ as in blue.

Silent ‘E’ Rule: When a vowel and single consonant are followed by an ‘e’ (in the same
syllable), the ‘e’ is almost always silent, but it causes the preceding vowel to be long. (Examples:
ate, plane, Pete, bite, nine, rope, note, cube, flute.)
There are just a few exceptions, most involving a 've' or an 'one': above, dove (the bird),
give, have, live (the verb), love, move, prove, etc. A few others: come, done, gone, none, and one,
as well as office.
Those words are common, but many more -ve, -one words, & -ice are long: cove, dive, dove
(the past tense), drive, drove, five, gave, grove, hive, knives, live (the adjective), pave, revive, save,
stove, strive, survive, thrive, alone, bone, cone, phone, stone, tone, & advice, dice, ice, nice, price,
rice, etc.

2) Short Vowels
The term short vowel is used to refer to the sounds that most often correspond to the letters
'a,' 'e,' 'i,' 'o,' and 'u' when the vowel occurs individually between consonants (Consonant-Vowel-
Consonant, or CVC pattern). It is important to note that the term short is not referring to the length
of time the vowel sound is pronounced—it is merely a label.

3) Common Examples Long Vowels

A: long A: long
◦ bake ◦ cane
◦ snake ◦ plain/plane
◦ fade ◦ tape
◦ made/maid ◦ Kate
◦ same ◦ rate
E: long E: long
◦ bead ◦ beat/beet
 ◦ bean ◦ mete/meat/meet
◦ mean ◦ Pete
◦ teen ◦ seat
I: long I: long
◦ like ◦ fine
◦ hide ◦ shine
◦ slide ◦ bite
◦ dime ◦ light/lite
◦ time ◦ sight/site
O: long O: long
◦ robe ◦ coat
◦ hope ◦ note
◦ mope ◦ rote/wrote
U: long U: long
◦ cube ◦ cute
◦ tube ◦ flute
◦ huge ◦ mute

4) Common Examples Short Vowels

A: short A: short
◦ back ◦ can
◦ snack ◦ plan
◦ fad ◦ tap
◦ mad ◦ cat
◦ Sam ◦ rat
E: short E: short
◦ bed ◦ bet
◦ Ben ◦ met
◦ men ◦ pet
◦ ten ◦ set
I: short I: short
◦ lick ◦ fin
◦ hid ◦ shin
 ◦ slid ◦ bit
◦ dim ◦ lit
◦ Tim ◦ sit
O: short O: short
◦ rob ◦ cot
◦ hop ◦ not
◦ mop ◦ rot
U: short U: short
◦ cub ◦ cut
◦ tub ◦ flutter
◦ hug ◦ mutter

5) R-Controlled Vowels
If a vowel comes before R, it changes in quality, and is neither long nor short. (ER, IR, and
UR are often -- though not always--the same sound.)
Examples with phonetic symbols:
• /ɑr/ -- arm, car, charge, dark, farm, start
• /ɛər/ -- air, aware, bare/bear, hair, spare, tear (pull apart paper or fabric), there, very, where
• /ɪər/ -- beer, ear, hear/here, near, tear (from crying)
• /ɜr/ -- curt, discern, first, fern, herd, hurt, earth, mirth, service, slur, whirl, worry, worth
• /ər/ -- baker, better, bigger, doctor, letter, smaller, summer
• /ɔr/ -- course, for (or four), important, more, north, or, source, war (or wore), your (or
you're)

6) Other English Vowel Sound

Besides the long and short sounds, there are other sounds English vowels can make.
Any vowel in an unaccented syllable has a neutral or “schwa” /ə/ sound. Examples: the ‘a’
in above, or approve, the ‘e’ in accident, camera or mathematics, the ‘i’ in family or officer, the ‘o’
in freedom or purpose, or the ‘u’ in industry or succeed.
In the U.S., this is very close to the short 'U' sound. I can't hear the difference, except that
the vowels are often harder to hear at all in unaccented syllables.
 7) Vowel Digraphs
Two vowels written together (digraphs) may be a diphthong, combining the two sounds,
(like the oi/oy in boy, point, or ointment).
They may instead be pronounced in various other ways, depending on the combination.
Some (like ai or ay, ea, ee, or oa), use the long (or in a few cases the short) sounds above.
Others (au/aw, oo, and ou or ow) may use these sounds or others

8) Exceptions, Dialects, & Help

Quite a few common words spelled with ‘O’ are pronounced with a short ‘U’ sound: of,
love, money, other, some, son. (That means some and sum are homophones: they sound the same.
So are son and sun.) See the course below for more examples and practice.
Different English dialects pronounce certain vowels differently than the general rules given
above. For example, in California and much of the U.S., the ‘a’ in ‘father’ or ‘want’ sounds like the
‘au’ in ‘audio’ or the short ‘o’ in ‘pot’ or ‘hot.’ In many other places that’s not true.
Ate, the past tense of eat, is pronounced with a long 'a' (/eɪ/) in North America, but more often as 'et'
(with a short 'e') in British English.
Another example: the /ɜr/ in bird, burn, earth, etc. is generally pronounced /ər/ in the U.S. and some
other areas.

III. Accents

What is Accent?
The way in which people in a particular area, country, or social group pronounce words.
Accents typically differ in quality of the voice, pronunciation and distinction of vowels and
consonants, stress, and prosody. Although grammar, semantics, vocabulary, and other language
characteristics often vary concurrently with accent, the word "accent" may refer specifically to the
differences in pronunciation, whereas the word "dialect" encompasses the broader set of linguistic
differences. Often "accent" is a subset of "dialect".

1. British English

British accent mainly spoken in the south of England, and exaggerated by the upper classes,
sometimes described as "the Queen's English".
There are greatly differing accents across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland,
and for a more regional or "authentic" accent, it's best to choose one particular area, and try to learn
how to mimic that accent instead. Adopting British mannerisms while speaking will also help for
authenticity. This study of RP is concerned largely with pronunciation, while study of the standard
language is also concerned with matters such as correct grammar, more formal vocabulary and
style.
a) R's
Understand that in most British accents, speakers don't roll their Rs (except for those
from Scotland, Northumbria, Northern Ireland, and parts of the West Country and
Lancashire), but not all British accents are the same. For example, a Scottish accent
varies greatly from an English accent. After a vowel, don't pronounce the R, but
draw out the vowel and maybe add an "uh" (Here is "heeuh"). In words like "hurry",
don't blend the R with the vowel. Say "huh-ree". Some words are easier to say in a
British accent. For example, mirror, which sounds like "mih-ra". Do not say "mirror"
like "mere"; British people almost never do that.

Some awkward pauses in sentences are also removed by the addition of "r"
before a vowel. For example, "I saw it" becomes "I saw-rit", to avoid the
pause between the words 'saw' and 'it'. Another example is "Bacteria are
small", pronounced "Bacteria-rar-small".

b) U's
Pronounce U in stupid and in duty with the ew or "you" sound. Avoid the oo as in
pronounced ; thus it is pronounced stewpid or commonly schewpid, not stoopid, etc.
duty would be pronounced dewty or more often jooty. In the standard English accent,
the A (for example, in father) is pronounced at the back of the mouth with an open
throat—it sounds like "arh". This is the case in pretty much all British accents, but
it's exaggerated in RP. In southern England and in RP, words such as "bath", "path",
"glass", "grass" also use this vowel (barth, parth, glarss, grarss, etc.). However, in
other parts of Britain "bath", "path", etc. sound like "ah".

c) T's
Ts aren't pronounced in words where Americans use D to replace it. However, there
is usually a short pause or "hiccup" in its place. So "battle" might be pronounced ba-
ill but it would be a rare occasion to find someone saying "Ba-ill" catching the air
behind the back of the tongue at the end of the first syllable before expelling it on
pronunciation of the second syllable. This is known as the glottal stop. use glottal
stops, too, for words like "mittens" and "mountain". It's just that British use them
more often.

d) Th
There are two fricative TH sounds in English: voiceless /θ/ in TEETH, THANKS &
BATH, and voiced /ð/ in THE, BROTHER & BATHE. In British English they are
both made with the tongue touching behind the teeth, but in some accents they’re
replaced with /f/ and /v/, like in London.

e) Heavy Consonants
Heavy consonant words. Pronounce that T in "duty" as T: not as the D as doody so
that duty is pronounced dewty or a softer jooty. Pronounce the suffix -ing with a
strong G. This way it sounds like -ing rather than -een. But sometimes it is shortened
to in as in lookin.

The words human being are pronounced hewman being or yooman been in
certain areas, though it could be pronounced hewman bee-in.
f) 12 Vowels = 12 Tongue Positions
British English has 12 mouth positions for vowel sounds, here goes: /i ɪ e æ ə ɜ ʌ ɑ u
ʊ ɔ ɒ/. It’s really important to put the tongue in a different place for each of these, as
many sounds are only subtly different – like the vowel sounds in SHIP and SHEEP.
There isn’t actually much difference in the length of these two sounds, but the tongue
is always further forward in SHEEP.

g) 7 Further Double Vowels

There are a further 7 double vowels (diphthongs): /eɪ, ɔɪ, aɪ, əʊ, aʊ, ɪə, eə/, perhaps
the hardest one is the /əʊ/ sound in OH, NO, GO & SHOW. Northern accents might
say [nɜː] or [nɒʊ], cockney would be more like [naʊ], and really posh speakers
would start toward the front [nɛʊ], but in standard British English, it starts in the
middle, you [nəʊ].

h) No Too Much Stress

Don’t stress every syllable in English – half of them are weak (the underlined ones in
this sentence). It’s essential, though, to find the main stress in every sentence or
speech unit – and really stress it by making it longer, louder and normally higher:
A John! How are you?
B David! I’m fine, how are you?
The bold, underlined syllable is the main stress in each part, it’s also where the

i) Intonation
British English intonation is fairly flat until the main stress, then it tends to go high
and fall. There are three intonation patterns: falling ↘YES, rising ↗YES, and fall-
rising ↘↗YES, these show our attitude to our words, you can hear them in this
conversation:
A | ↘John | How ↘are you? |
B | ↘David | I’m ↘fine | How are ↘you? |
A | ↘↗Actually | there’s something I need to ↘tell you |
B | ↘↗OK | shall we go and grab a ↗coffee? |
A | ↘Yes | somewhere ↘private | would be ↗best | where you can sit ↘down |
B | I don’t much like the ↘↗sound of this |

j) Pronounce
Observe that some words are pronounced as written. The word "herb" should be
pronounced with an H sound. The word "been" is pronounced "bean", rather than
"bin" or "ben". For RP, "Again" and "renaissance" are pronounced like "a gain"
and "run nay seance", with the "ai" as in "pain", not "said." The words ending in
"body" are pronounced as written, like "any body", not "any buddy." But use a
British short O sound.
Observe that H is not always pronounced. The "H" is pronounced in the word
"herb," in contrast erb. However, in many British accents, the H at the beginning
of a word is often omitted, such as in many Northern accents and the Cockney
accent.
Bean. "bean," not "bin" for the word been.
 Two or more vowels together may prompt an extra syllable. For example, the
word "road" would usually be pronounced rohd, but in Wales and with some
people in Northern Ireland it might be pronounced ro.ord. Some speakers may
even say "reh-uud."

2. American English :

a) T Sound
b) TH Sound
c) B and P Sound
d) R Sound
e) S and 2 Sound
f) Pronounce –Ed Ending
g) Pronounce With Letter H
h) Combinations Letter
i) Linking Vowels
j) Syllable Stress
k) Extra Y Sound
l) Intonation or Rhythm

IV. Differences between British English Accent and American Accent

a) Intonation
b) Vowels
c) Letter R
d) Letter T
e) Shortened Words

V. Closing