How to spell words that begin with a /s/ sound

Hello! And welcome to 6 Minute Vocabulary with me Neil…

… and me Catherine. Today we’re talking about how to pronounce words that begin with the letter c.

We’ll look at lots of examples…

…we’ll give you a quiz and we’ll leave you with a top tip for remembering new English words.

So, to start off, let’s listen to Maria. She works in a circus - do you like circuses Catherine?

When I was a kid I think I wanted to join a circus. These days I’m not so sure. Performing animals not my thing really.

Well Maria is a circus performer - she’s not an animal - and we’re going to hear her talking about how she started in the job.

And here’s a question to think about while you listen:

What didn’t Maria do at weekends? Here she is.

I started performing in my family’s circus when I was nine years old. I loved it. At the weekends, me and my sisters didn’t go to cybercafés or the cinema or hang around the park smoking cigarettes like other teenagers. We practiced performing.

I celebrated my 16th birthday by learning to ride a cycle that was only 20 centimeters high! My brother’s bike was so high it reached the ceiling!

So Maria had an interesting childhood, didn’t she?! And we asked you: what didn’t she do at weekends?

And the answer is: She didn’t go to the park or the cinema like other kids.

No. She practiced performing. And cinema is an important word in the show today because we spell it with a letter c, but we pronounce it with a /s/ sound. We don’t say ‘kinema’, it’s cinema.

A lot of words that start with the letter c are pronounced with a /k/ sound, like cake… crime, count, my name Catherine, card, lots of them…

But most words that start with the letters c-i are pronounced with a /s/ sound. Words like cinema, cigarette, and circus. And that’s rule one. Listen again.

I started performing in my family’s circus when I was nine years old. I loved it. At the weekends, me and my sisters didn’t go to cybercafes or the cinema or hang around the park smoking cigarettes like other teenagers.

Good. Now let’s see how we pronounce words that start with the letters c-e. Listen to this clip and see if you can spot those words.

I celebrated my 16th birthday by learning to ride a cycle that was only 20 centimetres high! My brother’s bike was so high it reached the ceiling!

So we had three c-e words there: all pronounced with a /s/ sound. We had celebrate, centimetre and ceiling. That’s our second rule.

And perhaps you spotted our third rule in that last clip…

Yes, well done if you’ve already noticed that words like cycle and cybercafe are pronounced with a /s/ sound even though they are spelt with c-y. Here’s the whole clip again.

I started performing in my family’s circus when I was nine years old. I loved it. At the weekends, me and my sisters didn’t go to cybercafés or the cinema or hang around the park smoking cigarettes like other teenagers. We practiced performing.

I celebrated my 16th birthday by learning to ride a cycle that was only 20 centimeters high! My brother’s bike was so high it reached the ceiling!

6 Minute Vocabulary from BBC Learning English.

And we’re talking about how to spell words that begin with the /s/ sound. When a word starts with the letters c-e, c-i or c-y, we usually pronounce it with a /s/ sound.

Right, it’s quiz time! How many words in these sentences are spelt with the letter c at the beginning? Number one, listen carefully. I can’t see my cycle anywhere.

And there were two words with c at the beginning - can’t and cycle.

Excellent! Number two: Christopher has gone to the cinema but Colin is coming to the cybercafe.

There were five that time: Christopher, cinema, Colin, coming, cybercafe.

OK. And get ready for number three: Crazy coloured circus clowns create chaos in cinema circles.

And that was a whopping eight words beginning with the letter c. Crazy, coloured, circus, clowns, create, chaos, cinema, circles.

And congratulations if you got them all right! That’s the end of the quiz.

And here’s a top tip to help you with new vocabulary. When you learn a new group of words, try to put them together in one long crazy sentence like you heard earlier. It’ll help you to remember them.

Top tip, Neil! There’s more about this at bbclearningenglish.com. Join us again for more 6 Minute Vocabulary

Bye! Bye!