Where there’s a will, there’s a way means if someone really wants to do something, they will find a way to do it, even if there are things that make it hard to do. This may be used in a positive sense, such as talking about a tireless worker who gets a hard job done. It can also be used in a negative sense, like when talking about a drug addict who will do anything to get their drugs. It is a 400-year old proverb (a short, common saying or expression that gives advice or shares a universal truth).
“I’ll Never Go Back to School” (2012): “I have no doubt that if obtaining your Masters is something that you want to do — you WILL do it… If there’s a will, there’s a way. No doubt you’ll find the way.”
In an interview, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives John Boehner (2011) noted this about the two major political parties in the U.S.:
“Where is it that we can stand together? It’s not easy to find sometimes. But I do think that where there’s a will, there’s a way. I think a lot of people around that room from both political parties are very sincere about trying to solve the problem.”
10 English Words You’re (probably) Mispronouncing! | Difficult Pronunciation | Common Mistakes
English words with difficult pronunciation
In this English pronunciation lesson, I’m going to show you how to pronounce some difficult words. These words are often pronounced incorrectly and are common mistakes that many English students make.
This is because the combination of sounds is difficult, or because there are silent letters and syllables.
I’ve chosen these words because they are common words and they are words that are often pronounced incorrectly by English learners.
These words are:
– vegetable
– comfortable
– almond and salmon
– et cetera (etc.)
– clothes
– jewellery
– architecture
– enthusiastic
– word, world & work
– photograph
Please note that the pronunciation of some of these words differs between English accents. I speak with an Australian English accent 🙂
Let’s fix these pronunciation mistakes together so that you can speak English more clearly and confidently!
English words with difficult pronunciation
Silent letters are letters that you can’t hear when you say the word, but that are there when you write the word.
Silent letters can distinguish between homophones, e.g. in/inn; be/bee; lent/leant. This is an aid to readers already familiar with both words.
Silent letters may give an insight into the meaning or origin of a word, e.g. vineyard suggests vines more than the phonetic ‘vinyard’ would.
Silent letters help to show long vowels e.g. rid/ride
Silent letters help to show ‘hard’ consonants e.g. guest/gest
They can help to connect different forms of the same word e.g. resign/resignation
English words with difficult pronunciation
how to spell: silent letters and why they aren’t there to mess with your brain – honest. Silent letters are the letters in words that are not pronounced but make a huge difference to the meaning and sometimes the pronunciation of the whole word.
The bad news is that more than 60% of English words have silent letters in them which can cause all sorts of problems spelling the word or looking for the word in a dictionary. Silent letters aren’t there to mess with your brain – honest.
They’re there for various reasons and so identifying and understanding them will definitely help your spelling, writing and confidence.
Let’s go over these reasons: First of all, they help the reader to distinguish between homophones (homophones have the Same sound but different meaning and different spelling and there are loads of these nightmare words in English)
A silent letter can help us work out the meaning of the word and it also can change the pronunciation even though it’s silent – sin/sign, rat/rate
Magic ‘e’ – if you add ‘e’ at the end of short vowel sound words it elongates the sound – rid/ride, cop/cope, hat/hate, tap/tape, at/ate, mat/mate, (check out my magic ‘e’ video ).
Sometimes people might pronounce certain letters or they might not depending on their accent, for example the t in ‘often’ can be pronounced or not.
H is silent in a lot of accents. For me h is a difficult letter to pronounce because I grew up dropping the hand my muscle memory doesn’t like it at all! But the H is silent in some words from French – hour, honest, honour, heir, herb (in American)
Understanding the history of English spelling is one of the most important ways to understand, remember and learn spelling.
Silent letters in words like: knock, plumber, island, gnat, daughter, night, doubt, receipt show the history and origins of the word.
Plumber is a Roman/Latin word from the Roman for lead pipe – plum bum. That difficult -gh- letter pattern is from the Anglo- Saxons – Daughter, night, dough, bright… the -gh- used to be pronounced like the Scottish loch, a hard sound – until the French invaded and messed around with our spelling.
Knife, knock, know, gnat, gnaw are all Viking words which used to be pronounced but not now but we leave the letters in there to see the origin and history of the word (in Sweden they still say the silent letter in knife kneefe)
Most of these silent letters were pronounced for centuries then they became silent but the spelling was already fixed with these spellings.
Also our spelling system was phonetic until the French, and the 16th Century academics messed around with our spelling.
The Reasons Why English Spelling is so Weird and Wonderful. It’s packed with information and will help you get your head round English spelling – go to my website www.howtospell.co.uk.
Now let’s continue with the lesson
The good news is there are some rules about what letters are silent before or after certain letters
( but like all English spelling rules there are exceptions to the rule).
A few silent letter rules but like all English spelling rules there are always exceptions. ‘k’ is often silent before ‘n’ – knee, know, knuckle, knock…
‘w’ is often silent before ‘r’ – write, wrist, wrong, wrap…
‘g’ is often silent before ‘n’ – gnat, gnaw, gnash, gnarl…
‘p’ is often silent before ‘s’ – psychic, psalm, psychology, psychiatry…
‘l’ is often silent before ‘k’ – folk, walk, talk, yolk…
‘b’ is often silent after ‘m’ – plumber, numb, dumb, bomb, comb, climb, thumb…
‘n’ is often silent after ‘m’ – autumn, column, solemn, hymn…
‘t’ is often silent after ‘s’ – listen, fasten, glisten, castle…
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In this video, we will teach you 25 English phrases, 25 English nouns, 25 English verbs and 25 adjectives that you must know if you’re an absolute beginner.
This is THE place to start if you want to start learning English, and improve both your listening and speaking skills.
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In conversations and other situations where you need to be able to process information quickly and respond immediately, translating in your head is a big problem.
It slows you down. It makes you hesitate. At times you’ll completely miss out on the conversation because your chance to jump in has come and gone and you’re still trying to translate. On top of all that, a lot of slang, idioms and phrasal verbs can be difficult to translate quickly — if at all!
It’s really best for your fluency if you stop translating in your head and learn to start thinking in English. Thinking in English is very important to developing your fluency in English… so let’s go!
Here are my nine tips for thinking in English.
DO DAILY ACTIVITIES IN ENGLISH
Can you change your phone settings to English? How about talking to your pet in English when you’re going for a walk? If you commute to work by train or bus could you buy your fare in English?
LISTEN TO MORE ENGLISH FOR IMMERSION WITH NATIVE SPEAKERS
Turn on the internet radio, download podcasts, put Netflix or YouTube on in the background while you’re doing your chores or work! Your brain is so amazing that it will begin to recognize patterns and want to follow them too!
TRY GUESSING OR PLANNING WHAT ENGLISH SPEAKERS ARE GOING TO SAY
When you predict the conversation based on experience, you’ll be more confident and ready to respond. Imagine the conversations that you want to have in the future and create them before they happen so you feel more prepared. It may not go word-for-word how you plan it, so be ready for change. You could write the conversation down and practice it a few times.
STOP LEARNING EXCLUSIVELY THROUGH TRANSLATION
Observe, watch, hear, smell and relate vocabulary directly to its meaning — not the word in your first language.
USE A MONOLINGUAL DICTIONARY
A bilingual dictionary is good for one thing — to put your coffee cup on so it doesn’t leave rings on your table.
LABEL OBJECTS IN YOUR EVERYDAY LIFE IN ENGLISH
You can do this in your mind or actually on pieces of paper taped to the objects (or use sticky notes). Start with everyday objects that you use every day! For example, if I have a book at home and I am learning Portuguese I would label it “livro,” or if I am learning Arabic then I would label it “kitab.” Every time I look at it I am reminded to think that word!
TALK TO YOURSELF IN ENGLISH
Ask yourself questions and answer them. Make up a short story about a person you see on your way to work. You may want to do this in private when no one else is within earshot. It’s ok if you are not sure if your grammar is perfect, or if you make a mistake. No one will know! If you’re not sure if what you said to yourself is correct or not, then make a note to yourself to find out! You can do some research online, or ask your teacher or a native speaker friend later.
JUST START THINKING IN ENGLISH WITH A MANTRA
Even the smallest effort is better than nothing. Start with a mantra, or motto, that will help you get started each day in English. For example, “My English is getting better each day.”
THINK A LITTLE MORE IN ENGLISH EACH DAY
Start small. Make it a habit to think in English a little each day. Set an alarm if it’s hard to remember to switch into English. Then use the timer on your phone or computer to 1 minute to start and think only in English for that amount of time. It doesn’t matter what you think about, or even if you just say a few of the same phrases over and over. See if you can extend the time each day by 30 seconds!
