How the English language would sound if silent letters weren’t silent - BBC

[@igormichigan]

I think anyone with English as a second language have experienced a huge feeling of relief here.

[@FurtherFromHeaven-uu6fb]

Anyone with English as a second language knows that saying things the way they were said in the video is how you learn how to spell them.

[@adilusa]

@@FurtherFromHeaven-uu6fb English is my second language and when I write something I always pronounce all letters in my head, especially words like "WeDnEsday" or "though"

[@FurtherFromHeaven-uu6fb]

@@adilusa yes, and I pronounce them in my head in a very exaggerated way. It's kinda annoying because you have to learn 2 words for 1, the way it's pronounced and the way it's spelled. Like it's not JUST wensdaee, it's also WED N E S day.

[@Inconcvable77]

I can imagine! English is my first language and struggled with understanding the spelling vs pronunciation 😂

[@jekku4688]

Oh I'm sure you've had fun with words like rough, cough, through, dough, trough, borough...I'm so sorry. :-(

[@SchwarzesSchaefle]

Suddenly it sounds like a normal Germanic language again!

[@mickymouse8439]

Exactly!

[@SadisticPrince]

Yep 😂😂😂

[@cazcade77]

yup

[@diegosiles1373]

😂I'm laughing like hell and I'm Spanish ❤🎉😂

[@singingsanja167]

Spoken by a German!...🤣🤣🤣

[@sambritten04]

Fun Fact : Silent letters in English are like ghosts of the past! They exist because English borrowed words from other languages (like Latin, French, and Old Norse), and while pronunciation changed over time, the spelling often stayed the same. For example, the "k" in "knight" was once pronounced (k-nicht) and the "b" in "debt" reminds us of its Latin root debitum. These silent letters are history hiding in plain sight!

[@amytih47]

Thank you so much for sharing that, very interesting 👍🏼

[@snand-c6w]

How kind of you to share this delightful bit of history with us. Thank you 🙏🏼

[@daniellamcgee4251]

Dr. Johnson, who started compiling the first English dictionary, wanted to standardise the creative varying spelling of the time, with a nod towards word origins (e.g. 'colour ' referencing French 'couleur). Dr. Johnson assumed, or guessed some of the origins and didn't always get it right. 😅

[@daniellamcgee4251]

Later, in America, Noah Webster wanted everyone in the Brave New World to be literate, so created his dictionary to be more phonetic. Hence, the spelling differences between English English and American English (e.g. color).

[@joanneaugust6611]

And as a German, you have that moment of realisation where you get that both words have the same root. Like your example knight and the German "Knecht" which is pronounced almost the same. These days it's rarely used, and if so, it mostly refers to farm workers in the past, or is used ij a biblical context. But basically a Knecht is nothing other than a worker and the employer of kind of work may be put in front of it. And soldiers used to be called "Landsknechte" - knights of the land, aka the lord, duke, king or whoever ruled the territory.

[@strawbarry7834]

The most impressive thing about this is realizing just how many times he must've practiced it to "un-do" a lifetime of muscle memory speaking those words.

[@mygamingroom1512]

Amazing

[@felixb.3420]

I am German and I don't understand what would be funny about this. This man is speaking a very good and understandable English!

[@Lenx81]

Same for Russian)

[@ales-rocks]

Same in Czech of course 😇

[@Alexandra-qw3hp]

Yep. Salmon, sandwich. I had to google for the correct pronunciation and was like ahhhhhhh 😮😂 after all this time 🧙‍♂️

[@millyabrahams4977]

😂

[@mam0la]

Poland here :) finally someone reads English properly😂

[@suakeli]

As a Finn I'm relieved to finally hear properly spoken English

[@m.cypher1471]

😂

[@Delibro]

As a German too.

[@localCrows]

As a german learning the pronunciation of Finnish is pure joy. Spoken English, French, Danish and Swedish sound completely different from the written language, while Russian and Arabic somehow add sounds that are impossible to reproduce. Finnish is just perfect. ❤

[@Arcessitor]

@@localCrows Dutch sounds exactly like written.

[@quasarsupernova9643]

As an Indian language(s) speaker too ...

[@Aster.2006]

This is just my Icelandic grandparents talking English

[@kurtaslan1511]

Icelander would sound better lol

[@robertalexandrugheorghe660]

They did great considering they're Icelandic and grandparents 😄👏

[@88marome]

Or the average Finnish person

[@thunkwaltz5571]

Same story in India, parents, children,all talk about it.

[@Lulu_Cafe7]

That's how my mom responds when I ask her to spell a word for me😂😂😂

[@jenniferwatson7118]

I want Silent Letter Day please! Love this clever, clean humour!

[@Venusandjupiteinunion6434]

It would be so great 👍

[@SCD-BOY]

Very well delivered joke, the memory skills are insane.

[@ma5thew]

Exactly what I was going to write. To remember all these "wrong" pronunciation, he has to have amazing memory, especially delivering it so casually and continuously without one mistake. Great work as always.

[@Amperzand]

@@ma5thew He will likely have had to practice this a lot. I bet his wife and kids had to hear it over and over and with lots of mistakes beforehand!

[@colinjames2469]

sorry, I forgot what you wrote

[@DadiszFekete]

Well he made one with shop​@@ma5thew

[@sayithowitis6824]

I was thinking the same thing I couldn’t for the life of me spell out the silent letters that fast Funny how we just know to change and ignore it

[@javiersds8081]

Silent Letter Day actually sounds like a fun idea.

[@marioluigi9599]

He got gnome wrong. Forgot to pronounce the e at the end.

[@tolishel]

Everyone will be impatiently waiting for that day. Because they had a year to train their vocabulary for it.

[@johnnymekosko9142]

I don't k-now. It might (pronounced micht) be a great idea!

[@dytch2220]

I’m down.

[@andyrieder3345]

Everyday is silent letter day for me 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@rookholgado]

Everyone: "English is ridiculous with letters that shouldn't be there!" **Gaelic enters the chat**

[@Lmerc]

French should also enter the chat. In most of the words half of the letters are silent.

[@alexdelaloire8739]

@@Lmerc No, English beats French when it comes to silent letters and inconsistencies...I don't know why thought, though, through, thourough, tough have completely different pronunciations

[@matthiasbehrendt6112]

​@@Lmerc Both French abd English have a weird written to spoken language relation. But at least French is more systematic then English in deciding what is silent and how a word is spoken at all.

[@MsSteelphoenix]

If I remember correctly, most of why Gaelic appears the way it does is because it was transcribed in Roman letters, and there aren't enough letters (or correct letters) for all the sounds, so they kind of... approximated them. Badly. See also: Welsh.

[@justynaaleksiejuk1802]

Say hi to French

[@Sai-qz9nk]

Love this kind of humour. It's clean, completely original and delivered brilliantly.

[@SeekingLifesMeaning]

What a genius comedian! Initially thought it would hurt my ears, but actually laughed my heart out! No slang, no profanity - just pure humor! Thank you!

[@WiseandVegan]

The Connections (2021) [short documentary] ❤🎉

[@MariaLanier]

Ditto 😂😂😂😂

[@mantailuaa]

ISMO did this better years ago.

[@muthiahperumal8299]

“h” silent, pl. It is “urt” and “umor”!😃

[@Anthonille]

He stole this from ISMO.

[@tiffanyb6420]

As an English teacher who is “ofTen” bombarded with “why is English so weird” commentary from my students, this was absolutely brilliant and hilarious. Salient points made. I’d enthusiastically celebrate Silent Letter Day! 😆😆😆

[@chisaten]

Are you going to use this in a class as a fun example?

[@theBakinNoob]

@@chisatenI am a student studying to become an English teacher and I’m thinking of at least sharing the link if it fits to the lesson 😂

[@rosepipin2552]

I’ve heard that there is nothing wrong with “ofTen”, some native speakers say it with “T”

[@WiseandVegan]

The Connections (2021) [short documentary] ❤🎉

[@brianhecimovich4488]

@@rosepipin2552saying often with the t makes the most sense to me, I’ve never heard anyone say “ofen” that doesn’t have a deep accent

[@cherrieb9314]

Knee in Norwegian is k-ne (k-neh in pronunciation), and knife is k-niv (k-niev). Old Norse is definitely there in English!

[@nicbarrax76]

Same in Swedish, k-nä, k-niv. 😄

[@VenosEvans]

Actually knee is German means the same thing.

[@amann1697]

Same in Danish

[@paddor]

Makes me wonder where the word Messer came from in German.

[@elsecallerjasnah]

Same in Dutch, the k before an n is always pronounced.

[@patricehughley2587]

This was sooo excellent - no profanity or slandering of any kind; just pure clean entertainment! Ty, ty, ty! A truly funny piece, performed excellently, in all its "difficulty"😂❤❤

[@valuemastery]

As a German, when I was in London driving the subway I was very surprised when we entered Leicester Square, but Lester Square was announced 😮

[@slightlygrouchy]

I was suprised by the constant advertising for an American clothing brand on the Tube: "Mind The Gap!"

[@marcuscrowley6496]

You might also enjoy Worcestershire sauce.

[@valuemastery]

@@marcuscrowley6496 Good one 🤯 I still have to figure that out.

[@_Diana_S]

@@marcuscrowley6496 i still remember the moment when our friend, who lived in Worcester, was spelling this "wustah" name to my hubby. After the 7th letter was spelled, the reaction was "Woah, too many letters!"

[@fernandaleitesrojas6367]

I was expecting Leicester and Worcestershire to appear

[@ryasmi]

I think Silent Letter Day should be Wednesday 29th February

[@Krzykophil]

See you in 2040

[@tonycook1624]

thats 16 years away - not 3

[@tonycook1624]

@@Matthew-ut6ed No mate - February 29th in 3 years time falls on a Twes-Day. You shoudl have checked that before you opened your mouth. Next time it falls on a Wed-Nes-Day is 2040 - - like I said.

[@sagmonty]

Perfect 👍

[@moonhunter9993]

good idea

[@gabriellahsdancingheart8808]

As a language lover, this intelligent humor is just so thrilling! Thank you for the good laugh and the opportunity to not be passive in the thinking of this humor.

[@tanyaedwards4574]

You're American- the u in the word humour was dropped by the USA because they felt too many letters made documents so much longer!

[@Cafeallday222]

@@tanyaedwards4574that’s such a weird reason to change a couple of letters. In Canada we use both but in official documents we use the u always. For person use, it varies.

[@shanecarson2337]

A "language lover" who misspells humour. Good joke! Maybe Michael will invite you to duet with him next time.

[@shanecarson2337]

@@Cafeallday222 Another one, lol. "Weird" actually means "supernatural, paranormal". So what you are saying is, "that’s such a supernatural, paranormal reason to change a couple of letters.". Mmhm.

[@traveller17]

@@shanecarson2337 It's not misspelled: it's correct like this in American English.

[@JetFalcon]

As a Brazilian, who spent a time in London 20 years ago to study English, I totally agree with this guy! I remember when I went to a shop to make a copy of a key, and I requested a "receiPt" (receepeetee) and the salesman, looked at me and said "are you learning English?" I'm like "yes, sir" then he kindly proceeded to teach me the letter 'P' shouldn't be said. The same when in the classroom when I said "iSland", with the 'S". 😂 Anyway, I've never forgotten those lessons. So, I totally agree with this comedian! 😂 (and I miss London so much!!)

[@essiebessie661]

Sweet story! Thank you and good luck with your studies.

[@JetFalcon]

@ , indeed, I’m always learning English! Many thanks!! 🙋🏻‍♂️

[@hyr1972]

@JetFalcon The iS-land joke was in the 1970s comedy Mind Your Language. Ali said iS-land 😁

[@joshuamirabal9891]

This iswater and that island

[@yayatheobroma929]

Iceland is an island, and remember what isn't water, island, so any island is land.

[@IngleseconAnna]

I'm an English teacher here in Italy. I love the idea of throwing a silent letter day party with my students🤣🤣🤣🤣 . Also, the writing for this is top-notch intelligence.

[@maudeboggins9834]

Once in English is 11 in Spanish & each letter is pronounced

[@IngleseconAnna]

@@maudeboggins9834 it's even worse in Italian. All the double letters are pronounced 🙊

[@maudeboggins9834]

@@IngleseconAnna True. Spanish is the easiest of all. What you read is pronounced exactly. Oh yes apart from the double "LL" oh well nearly though.

[@a6517]

Might actually help to remember words with silent letters to be honest!

[@eurekacomment5719]

Arabic is one of the easiest languages to learn how to read! Very few silent letters and each letter has marks on it to make it easy to know how to pronounce each letter. 4 year olds can easily learn how to read Arabic and they can easily get 95% of the words correct!

[@LadyVoldemort]

*"You sHoulD have KnowN! You never lisTen, you never lisTen!"* 😂😂😂😂😂 So hilariously adorable, I'm in stitches!!!

[@viddork]

shouLd

[@avalonmark_]

KnoWn

[@RocknRoll-p7q]

OMG, thinking about the amount of hard work this man may have went through while preparing this monologue.

[@joseandnatashabetancor-leo7048]

He outdid himself with this one. As a retired ESL teacher living in Spain I literally ache from laughing (and you can only imagine how I pronounced that!

[@edibleelegancecakestudio]

😂😂😂😂

[@neilriddell2171]

Sorry that you are literally aching.

[@taniang123]

My Spanish colleagues always pronounce it Es-pain 😂

[@jabadabadu7089]

Try word famiglia(family) 😁

[@theoteddy9665]

your lessons must be fun 😂

[@Sadhu_333]

No swearing and no filthy words, and well delivered. Real talent right there.

[@majorramsey3k]

Only if there are silent letters in them.

[@TorstenLif]

Ah, yes. "Kanoodle" has definite Norse roots, except nowadays we've dropped the d and morphed the e into an a.

[@contumelious-8440]

Oh no! A swear word like, "shit!" What will I do? Hopefully grow up.

[@WendyHein]

He's so funny and unlike a lot of comedians, manages to entertain without feeling the need to be coarse or fithy. Makes for a nice change. .Stumbled on this just before my bedtime and it's lovely to be able to go to sleep with a smile on my face.

[@gerh33]

Well said, ‘filthy’ or ‘blue’ comedy is stupid, anachronistic, and a relic of ‘Carry On’ rubbish - I love Bill Bailey fire the same reason, he’s able to be funny, sharp, witty, accurate all without resorting to that low-intellect tripe. 👍

[@SSkedd]

Sadly he swears more when not being filmed. I was disappointed when I saw him live in person.

[@michaelbaysorensen]

The same here. He is very funny!

[@DaingerMouse2]

@@SSkeddyep totally agree. But he was still brilliant.

[@mds4514]

The truth teller of our generation.

[@Patrick_Cooper]

This guy is epic. His delivery is spot on.

[@WewbaccaTheChookie]

2:50 He morphs into King Julian from “Madagascar” at this point…

[@mikek7660]

I'm struggling to place the accent

[@WewbaccaTheChookie]

@mikek7660 Madagascarian Lemurish 😭😭😭

[@annaburns2865]

I just realized that I’ve still never seen Madagascar, or it was a really long time ago. Because I don’t know who that is.

[@WewbaccaTheChookie]

@@annaburns2865 Just know that he is a cultural icon! That should be enough! 👍

[@insertnamehereplox2290]

@@WewbaccaTheChookie Who likes to move it, move it!

[@jenergomes]

Being a Brazilian and eternal English learner, I got half of the jokes, as many of the chosen words sounded correct to me... 😁 The stress on specific sounds and the audience's reactions helped me a lot to check the actual pronunciations. For the jokes I got, it was delightfull!

[@alexdelaloire8739]

The french words he used were incorrectly pronunced though...for example "Champagne" has no silent letters at all, the "g" goes with the "n" to form the sound ñ like in Spanish

[@jenergomes]

​@@alexdelaloire8739What a surprise!! Thank you. In Portuguese it is "champanhe", the "nh" has the ñ sound. So, this is the reason we say "Dartanhan" for "d'Artagnan"... Nice.

[@emem2756]

2:25 you missed the chance to underline silent E, it should be K-NIF-E 😂😂❤

[@drstefankrank]

Searching for this comment! Thanks for also noticing.

[@Siduch.]

It’s not silent tho, it changes the pronunciation of the i

[@チャン兄田]

He also missed the chance to pronounce “gnome” as G-NO-ME. He missed that opportunity too. Lol!

[@turbo_hurricane]

Guys letter e in these words changes the sound of the previous vowels

[@InnaDanceUA]

@@チャン兄田That video taught me that gnome has a silent g 😂😂😂 I had no idea. I always thought you have to pronounce it as in my language it’s not silent.

[@uhmgawa1435]

Genius! Absolutely refreshing approach to humor!

[@mantailuaa]

He has clearly been watching some jokes of ISMO and borrowed this idea from him.

[@warriorbard]

This was bloody BRILLIANT and I'm practically on the floor wheezing. Genius skit. Absolutely genius. 🤣🤣🤣

[@Anthonille]

ISMO did the joke about silent letters years ago.

[@veevy_maung]

Your comment reminds me of Ronny Weasley from Harry Potter .... BLOODY BRILLIANT!! Lol😊😂

[@smokyislay]

we-heezing you say?

[@bammi4]

You took the words right out of my mouth! Simply brilliant! Very good wholesome entertainment as well! Almost like a "G" rated George Carlin monologue! 😊😂

[@ManOzzY]

Amazing! This skit is in the mind of everyone ever that had to learn English as a non-native language. Everything he said, I have thought of it.

[@moonhunter9993]

We all sounded like that starting off...

[@feathercompressor]

Yeah as a native speaker about half of my thoughts every day are just rolling these exact words around in my head, playing with the sounds and pitying any who have to learn english as adults.

[@thomasjones4570]

Oh believe me...those of us that are native English speakers all though these things as children trying to learn how to spell all this shit correctly. i before e except after c...oh, except with this long ass list of words. have fun passing your spelling tests!

[@kuda999]

I remember the first I tried to pronounce Edingburgh

[@jaysky2000]

@@kuda999 I still struggle with 'Worcestershire' sauce

[@GoodMorning-hq2yi]

I really hoped he'd say "queueing"...

[@paddotk]

Kway-way-ing? :p

[@Eskimoso]

Q-you-in

[@jase6709]

Cue-ee-ooh-ee-ing

[@Heightsomethinghuman]

😂

[@muk2167]

And I was hoping "yacht" ⛵

[@dr.med.naylasaminashazi-ko6510]

Oh ,Bro ! OMG! This is a marvellous and outstanding summary of English. You nailed it , man‼️👊🤯😂😂😂

[@lenagreen4031]

I have always said that he is a genius, his obverency of culture, language, body language etc! Etc! Is second to none. He was never a flash in the pan! Too much talent running through his veins. May be continue for another 25, brilliant years of entertaining us. X

[@oliverraven]

Observation skills 10/10 Intellectual curiosity after a quarter of a century? Still 0/10 Wouldn't take much research to find out the origin of all those letters and then make a routine of *that* instead.

[@thatcrayonmonkey]

@@oliverraven That's what Eddie Izzard was for!

[@guepardiez]

his obverency is very cromulent

[@georgenorris2657]

@@oliverraven he''s totally wasted on silly quiz shows but I guess it tides him over between one man stints. Those shows take a huge amount of preparation for sure.

[@Mambojambobombastic]

seen a silent letter skit from another comedian, not sure if this was stolen or not

[@Make_SL_Great_Again]

ThAnK YoU!!!! Finally, someone understood the struggle with silent letters 😂

[@hypercynic]

The eccentricities add so much to this. The theatrical level performance enhances it perfectly.

[@robertwhelan9132]

Michael actually seems like he puts on a slight Germanic accent to make this routine all that more authentic...I'm rolling...

[@Opinionated-Angel]

I have never watched this comedian before. I am so happy I am watching this for the second time, because I am laughing so hard that I have tears running down my face. Michael McIntyre is hilarious. Too funny.

[@MsBhappy]

What a joy you'll have catching up on all his videos!

[@carolynzaremba5469]

Same here.

[@rgfella]

For those curious of why these letters were ever written there, here's a list: *Hour* - From Latin hōra, where the h was pronounced *Sandwich* - Compound of sand+wich, but "ndw" is hard to say, so the d was dropped. *Half* - Used to be pronounced (See Swedish "halv") *Subtle* - From Latin root subtīl-, where the b was pronounced *Knickers* - Named after a guy. Further etymology is uncertain. *Knuckles* - Used to be pronounced in Old English (See Danish "knogle") *Wednesday* - The Anglo-Saxon equivalent to Odin was Woden, and "Woden's Day" was pronounced "Wodnes Day" (wōdnesdæġ), but it's so common a word that many letters fell away *Autumn* - From Latin root autumn-, where it was pronounced (See "autumnal") *Februrary* - From Latin Februārius, but "brura" is hard to say so the first r is dropped *Talk* - See half *Walk* - See half *Climb* - Used to be pronounced by -mb is hard to say, so it was dropped. (See clamber) *Knit* - See knuckles *Knife* - Ditto (See Swedish "kniv") *Buffet* - Used to be pronounced, but it was dropped in French, so English speakers changed their pronounciation to match *Salmon* - From Latin salmō, where the l was pronounced *Sword*(fish) - Used to be pronounced (See German "Schwert") *Yoghurt* - From Turkish "yoğurt" where 'ğ' is sometimes written 'gh' but actually represents a 'w' sound. *Gnome* - See knuckles *Christmas* - Compound Christ+mass, but "istma" is hard to say *Cupboard* - Compound Cup+board, but "pb" is hard to say *Wrap* - Used to be pronounced "rwap". Akin to "wrist" (See Swedish "vrist") *Scissors* - 'c' was added because of an assumed relationship with Latin "scindō" meaning "to cut" *Honest* - From Latin "honestus", where the 'h' was pronounced, ditto for "honor" *Should* - Used to be pronounced (See German "sollen") *Know* - See knuckles *Listen* - Simply put, it used to be pronounced (see Icelandic "hlust") *Receipt* - From Latin "receptus" (see "reception"), similar story for "phlegm" vs "phlegmatic" and "sign" vs "signature" *Champagne* - In French (and Italian) "gn" represents the sound "ny" (see "champignon" and "oignon") *Knock* - See knuckles *Chloe* - From Ancient Greek "χλόη" (khlóē) but 'χ' is transliterated as "ch" (see chasm, chaos, chimera, chemistry, etc.) *Isla* - Named after a Scottish river, but further etymology is uncertain. Personal theory: the 's' is in analogy with "island", "isle", and "aisle" *School* - From Ancient Greek σχολή (skholḗ), see Chloe *Lasagna* - See champagne *Knackered* - See knuckles

[@imadmatar6941]

If you think english has silent letters check out the french language where sometimes half of a word could be silent

[@origamichik3n]

Loic Suberville has a very helpful selection of short videos to help you in that quest.

[@jayhill2193]

is it Bordo wine, Bordau wine? No it‘s Bordeaux wine, naturally!

[@kdemetter]

True, but at least it's more consistent. And they have special characters to help indicate how you should pronounce it.

[@kdemetter]

@@origamichik3n He's awesome !

[@Sam-ep7sc]

Indeed. If this word existed: “haingxt”, the French would pronounce it “an”.

[@hilarycabot8734]

I absolutely loved this guy. I don't know who he is but I want more. One of the best skits I have seen in a while. Bravo, made me laugh out loud!!!! This was a 10!

[@lisaberry862]

My father hated silent letters, too! He always referred to a knife as a "k-niff-ee.

[@JonatasAdoM]

The Suuord one hurts because so many people do it. I mean, how'd you even know. Now learning that Knife's plural is knives is something else.

[@Tvaikah]

@@JonatasAdoM 'Swords' was originally pronounced with an audible W, to be fair.

[@Dave1507]

@@Tvaikah That could be of germanic origin, because in german it's "Schwert".

[@miamijim5964]

I live in Finland where a Knife is always a K-nif-ee.

[@dcmastermindfirst9418]

My English boss says it like that as a joke

[@wanderer314]

Now just imagine if French was like this. The average sentence length would triple :P

[@aleksandrnestrato]

😂 I immediately thought of something simple like: _Il y a beaucoup d'eau ici._ [Eel ee ah boh-coo d’oh ee-cee]

[@johnchessant3012]

"silent letter day, where they all come out to play" nice rhyme lol

[@imblind217]

1:07 Idk it sounds like German.

[@saviom8166]

0:26 you obviously haven't been to India.

[@nanit06]

😂

[@Letssavetheearth-qm3uy]

😂😂

[@pawzoned]

Ishh 😂😂😂

[@Random_Mobile_Videos]

haLf an Hour 😂😂😂😂

[@bhaveeshbhaveesh7612]

Never realized the h was supposed to be silent up until this point

[@42kellys]

Why, why why, I laughed so that tears rolled down, thank you I am so stressed these days with preparing to travel, it is a welcome relief with laughter.

[@marmitenot.]

I'm also preparing to travel and I'm terrified. 😂

[@42kellys]

@@marmitenot. Yeah, with all the hassle it goes with no wonder.

[@anigrig1719]

You are laughing at this, but this is exactly how Finnish people speak English - spelling each letter in the word 😂😂😂

[@VyanTan]

I'm Indonesian and that's how I was taught in school... Knife, knight, knuckle, wednesday, scissor, etc lol. I mean how do you even differentiate between Knight and Night if you spell them the same 😅

[@12e_1]

Lot's of Germans talk English like that 😊

[@Z8Q8]

@@VyanTan By Context. Does your native language have any strange or silly things in it?

[@k.s.8064]

Oh my God was that extremely and amazingly funny 🤣🤣🤣 It (k)nocked me out...😅

[@Advoc8te4Truth]

This would be quite literally the greatest English language lecture ever 😂❤ I'm laughing though at all the Germans saying why's everybody laughing 😂❤

[@susie9893]

My language teacher would have *adored* this skit

[@maja-kehn9130]

This NEEDS to be an official holiday! We should start a petition. 😆🤣

[@StudioTinidril]

He's a non-piano playing Victor Borge! 🤣 Wonderful!

[@juliew1446]

omg!! I was thinking exactly the same!!😂

[@suzannekeen4976]

Inflationary speech and phonetic punctuation! 😂

[@BarbaraPryor-Smith]

Oh he is so cute here giving us a hearty laugh. There are so many words his talented self could play with! He is fabulous. I hope to hear more from him! 😊

[@callbettersaul]

0:53 The e in subtle is also silent, so it should be "sutl" even

[@kojoyeboah7]

Oh the subtle psychotic psychology of the English language 😂. Don't get me started on singulars and plurals....mouse/mice louse/lice...house???😂

[@TorstenLif]

Or verbs. Why is it "ride, rode, ridden" but not "slide, slode, slidden" or "glide, glode, glidden"?

[@kojoyeboah7]

@TorstenLif absolutely 😂. Find, found...wind, wound...bind, bound. Mind? Try saying i "mound" my business the last time 😂

[@jamiewillis5690]

Michael is a national treasure 😂😂😂😂😂

[@jamespotter3660]

Fool's gold more like.

[@colinjames2469]

Mic ha el !

[@DogCrag]

More like a national pain in the arse.

[@SusanYosef]

LOL so hard that my tears are still flowing. Hysterical, simply hysterical.

[@robobunny4641]

The legendary missing episode of 'Allo 'Allo! Brilliant 😂

[@ark90ELF]

I love that show ❤ and yes this fits right in 😂

[@winifredvanderpuye8247]

😂😂😂 believe me I'm totally confused hearing the words pronounced along with the silent letters. There'll be total c-hay-yos the h-our we start to use them! 😂😂😂 O-h my! I absolut-e-ly lov-e this!

[@MsArdi-wi8hy]

Just finished teaching a unit about the spread of languages and this is amazing. May share it with my students. :)

[@m.cypher1471]

I'm saving it to share with my students!

[@Reina.Nijinsky]

4:31 As an American 🇺🇸 I must say we have dropped a lot of British-English silent letters over the past two and a half centuries. Plenty more to go! 😂

[@lizsteele8858]

This was great. Good old Michael Mac...putting a smile on my face & highlighting our silly language.🤭 It also reminds me of his Spices in the cupboard sketch. A favourite of mine.👍🏻😁

[@aliia_linguacosmos]

Elementary English learners start talking that way with the silent letters 😂 So at first I hear that kind of talk a lot 😅

[@eigonojikan_k]

3:13 Stanley Tucci!

[@Wimpoman]

Or Mark Strong? XD

[@Enivri]

Yep and 3:50 is Michael Sheen and Anton Du Beke

[@Anonymous2306]

I was wondering if it is really him!

[@resolecca]

​@@Anonymous2306it is really him he lives in the uk

[@maxm2574]

Some of you don't know the name but that's that guy from The Hunger Games

[@gettoknowdavid]

Brilliant delivery

[@nanamanaaa]

what makes it more funny is that he can implement it really well and so easy 🤣🤣🤣

[@hotdog1214]

It seems my family are already in silent letter day they quite often say k-niff, las-ag-nee, skissors and cham-pag-a-nay. Love the idea of everyone having to do it for a whole day though, that's hilarious! 😂😂

[@olessyayurchenko8763]

I feel a lot of pain in my cheeks thanks to severe laughting😂😂😂

[@maudeboggins9834]

Me too, I was actually laughing quite high pitched I think my son thought I was in pain. Only pain from laughter fortunately.

[@larryfreeman7979]

wow, best 4.65 minutes of my day for sure. What a hoot.

[@stephencamplin-d8h]

I’m surprised that no-one mentioned the word “Queue…” - only one letter pronounced, followed by four silent ones - should be “Q ueee ueee…” 🤔

[@ashj1979]

The last four letters are well…queuing

[@jmacjewels5780]

This was brilliant! Like when he did the joke about names with different spellings 😂

[@lizsteele8858]

...and one of my favourites...the Spices/ Herbs in the cupboard. If you haven't seen it, worth checking out.🙂

[@jmacjewels5780]

@lizsteele8858 I’ve watched that it’s funny!

[@skeptic1124]

That is what i like about croatian and other slavic languages, everything is spelled exactly as it is spoken, with a very few exceptions. When someone says their name, you immediately know how to spell it, even if you are 7 years old. Sometimes when i see some english, german and french words spelled out, i get dizzy. Peugeot or bordeaux are my favorites. Just use the letter o at the end and scratch those extra letters damn it🙃

[@Born.Toulouse]

We Germans are actually proud of the fact that our spelling is pretty much straightforward and close to the pronunciation. Just opposed to English and French. Are we wrong about that??

[@MarkusWitthaut]

@@Born.Toulouse Even though German is much more regular than English when it comes to pronunciation, it is far from regular. The ch in ich and auch are two different sounds. A d, g or b is pronounced as t, k (sometimes the ich-ch sound) or p when this sound is at the end of a word stem. Think about Hand and Hände, grob and gröber or König und Könige. And their many more examples. The biggest problem is, that we use an alphabet that was designed for Latin. There are patterns you have to learn so you know how to change the pronunciation when you decline or conjugate a know.

[@sheilaboston7051]

East Timor (Timor-Leste) has many dialects but their written forms are a fairly recent introduction. Because there are no roots to other languages, each word is written exactly as it sounds, with just a few exceptions. Makes it easy to read and speak, but there's very little grammar or tenses, which makes construction hard. e.g. I go = hau ba, he/she goes = nia ba, horeseik hau ba = yesterday I go, i.e. I went! Hence, they find English very hard.

[@MagycArwen]

I'm italian and it's the same in our language! No one needs to spell check 😂

[@skeptic1124]

​@@Born.Toulouse it is certainly better than english, but some people have their name spelled Müller and some have it spelled Mueller. Sometimes the letter c is pronounced like a k, sometimes like a c. Sometimes the letter s is pronounced like an s, sometimes like a z. And these compound words can get so long, they make me want to use decimal points in words 😁 i also still have problems with numbers being pronounced backwards, despite speaking german for 30 years. If someone says 36, 24, 86, 29 really fast, i get stunned. 🙃 I have to reverse engineer it in my head in order to get it right.

[@grogu1986]

One of the greatest British comedians of all time

[@Jaxxx365]

Actually crazy how smooth he said this without any issues

[@nanashinoname9937]

First time seeing lingustic stand up and i love it, i need more

[@mantailuaa]

Then you should check out ISMO and his word based jokes, this silent letter thing was one of his jokes years ago.

[@nanashinoname9937]

@mantailuaa i will, thank you

[@bonniemoerdyk9809]

Michael ... You never fail to brighten my day! I was feeling kind of glum, but you put a smile on my face😊

[@happyhedgewytch4573]

OMG! Crying while I laugh so hard!! He is awesome!🤣🤣🤣

[@Nikodymus]

😂😂😂 English is a language comprised of 3 other languages and a dead one. Imagine 3 old guys and a corpse shambling around on top of each other’s shoulders in a trench coat. That’s the English language.

[@normatako3971]

'Comprised of' is not English. It should be 'comprises' or 'composed of'

[@ifallthingsmatter]

This is Hilarious! Well done to the comedian🤣

[@WindYaNeckIn]

That was a 2 Ronnie's calibre performance. Well done Michael for nailing it. 😂

[@Jacobus1991]

That's precisely how Italians pronounce English!! 😅😂😂 I found out new words which I mispronounced 😅

[@charlsieburnett9448]

3:20 what's even funnier to me is that I say scissors like that already😂😂

[@LYCHlWl]

😂

[@genesis102076]

Very funny. One of the few stand up comedian with clean jokes. Congratulations.

[@linedallaire9631]

Saw Michael in early December in Ottawa, Canada 🇨🇦 omg, this guy is hilarious 😂. Thank you for the amazing show.

[@photoshajigeorgiou5337]

Absolutely hillarious! I haven't laughed so hard for a long time.

[@nazirkhalifa5377]

Salute our English teachers.😅😅😅

[@_Caoran_]

Finns are so silent that we don't need silent letters :)

[@paddotk]

I honestly think having a 'silent letter day' is a good idea. Just for the fun and ridiculousness of it.

[@sathi6320]

"sal-mon!!! Al-mond!!!lol!!! Totally hilarious!!! Best of British humour!!🎊🎉😂😅🤣🎊🎉

[@jontybelmont3384]

I bet silent letter day hits different in Ireland. With Siabhon, Eilidh, etc

[@lordprotector3367]

I used to think Eilidh was pronounced 'eyelid'. :)

[@davidchambers7508]

Silent letters in Irish are somewhat different. The “h” following a consonant softens this. The consonant combination in English “ph” pronounced as “f” is example of this consonant softening.

[@jontybelmont3384]

Possibly, my bad :)

[@stormveil]

technically those are digraphs in Siobhan. si is sh. bh is v. Like sh in shall goes together. Irish just has a different spelling system than English.

[@michaelpelletier]

What about silent letter day in Wales? Lol

[@joe_z]

0:53 I would complain. "Sutle" suggests the U should be long (like "bugle" or "ruble"), and you need a second T to shorten it. That makes it "suttle".

[@viridiantheforest1037]

I know a lot of people who pronounce the b

[@wardeni9603]

Well, English could also just be more logical about how long vs short vowels are spelled: for example languages like Finnish or Dutch use double lettering (aa, oo, uu, ee etc.) to indicate a long wovel, while a single letter vowel is always short. English actually does this already in some words such as "door" or "looming." Another popular option of course is to use an acute accent above the vowel to indicate when it's supposed to be long. So this way, "sutle" would make perfect sense as long as words with long vowels were accented (búgle, rúble)

[@MikeyDiff]

Suttle would be pronounced 'suttlee'. e can't be silent 😅

[@joe_z]

​​@@MikeyDiff I completely forgot about that - so did McIntyre, to be fair. Otherwise he would have said "sutel". The silent E's are so prevalent that we don't even notice them half the time when thinking about silent letters.

[@BingBong67489]

@@joe_z Yeah I realized that he forgot about silent E's when he said the word "celebrate" without pronouncing the silent E. Maybe that's because silent E still technically has a purpose in that it changes the sound of other letters, so it's an exception.

[@sylviafriessen9124]

Haven't laughed so hard in awhile 🤣🤣🤣 love it

[@Hayley321-g5e]

how funny and clean humour! We really enjoyed it :D

[@gsnjpn]

1:30 easy there michael! LOL

[@Merp418]

He wouldn't last long in Ireland

[@billybobthekidiswack]

You mean Mich-aye-eel?

[@paulxaphier5488]

I love this man and Lee Evans, but what makes Michael McIntyre that extra special is that I’ve never heard him swear or be dirty. The odd explicit joke here and there but nothing you can’t watch in front of family. That’s why this guy is a LEGEND, full stop.

[@heatherlewis3713]

This was so funny. My Depression has been really bad this week, but this made me laugh.

[@lizsteele8858]

Keep going. Laughter is definitely one of the best tools to help that.🙂

[@arushigupta1454]

take care :)

[@heatherlewis3713]

@lizsteele8858 Thankyou. I'm from Melbourne, Australia 🇦🇺. I've had Chronic Depression since 8 years of age. But as I got older & the Medication wasn't really doing much, the Diagnosis was amended. So my actual Diagnosis is - Medication Resistant Chronic Depression. I also have Anxiety & Mild OCD.

[@simonmackenzie6230]

Hello from Sydney. Keep trying! It took me over 25 years to find a medication that really worked for me. Many did nothing, some were just ok, some started well and lost effectiveness. Make sure your specialist tries different drug types, SSRI, SNRI, tricyclic, MAOI, etc. For me I needed both serotonergic and noradrenergic action. Don't give up! (Apologies if I'm repeating stuff you already know and have tried - I've just found most psychiatrists very sub-par; I often wondered on what side of the desk I should be sitting!) All the best. Keep laughing.

[@justincase7848]

For some reason there are a plethora of subpar psychiatrists. I often wonder if it's because their patients don't have the resources to sue.

[@MaiElizabeth]

I spilled my coffee when he said KNIFE

[@mortimer.thegnome]

03:05 I actually felt quite well in the cupboard.