 How do you spell the E sound in English? This video is brought to you by eslgold.com and Spelletics. We're here to give you some help with the complicated spellings of English sounds. Our approach starts with the sounds, not the letters in the alphabet. Audio first, visual later. This video is designed for adult and teenage learners of English. If you would like to see the fun children's version, please click on the link in the description below. How do you spell the E sound in English? Seems like a silly question, doesn't it? Well, it isn't. There are actually eleven ways to spell this sound. Eleven ways? Really? Let's learn them all. Let's start with the most common ones. The E sound is spelled in a variety of ways. Most of them are easy to see, but there are a few surprises. We'll start with the most common ones. Number one, E alone. Unlike most other vowel sounds, the E sound is commonly written with the letter E alone. The single E occurs in many places. One is at the end of short words, like pronouns and be. He, she, we, me, be. Single E. Another place is at the beginnings of words, especially when the first syllable is stressed. English evening, ether. These are often used in today's language where E represents electronic. Email, e-book, e-course, E alone. What are the pronouns in English? Well, there's me, we, she, he, what are the others? What can they be? Two, another way to spell the E sound is with a double E. The double E occurs at the end and in the middle of words, C, be, be, tree, spree, need, keep, peak, greet, esteem. Double the E and look what you see. Three, E-A. In the middle, end, and beginning of words, the E sound is often spelled E-A. Team, clean, meet, tee, pee, see, each, east, eager, E-E-E. Clean up your room please, eat your peas, do your homework, don't daydream. Leave me alone mom, you're so mean. Four, we sometimes spell the E sound with a silent E. The silent E comes at the end of the word and it is usually separated from the E by a single consonant, E-silent E. Let's look at some examples. These, peat, seen, delete, mean. With the E sound, we often see E-A and E-E used in the same syllable as a silent E. For example, peace, leave, tease, appease, decrease, freeze, sleeve, cheese, sneeze. Using other letters to spell the E sound. An I for an E sounds crazy to me. Here's where the E spelling gets confusing. Sometimes we don't even use the letter E to spell the E sound. For example, at the ends of words, we often use the letter Y to indicate the E sound. City, easy, pony, silly, tiny. A Y for an E. You might be crazy, but don't be lazy. It's a pity, I'm not pretty. Why can it be that Y sounds like E? To make things even more difficult, E is sometimes spelled with the letter I. For example, think, thing, sing, pink, machine. Sometimes E gets words, English gets words from other languages where the E sound might be spelled with an I. Pizza, chili, sushi, deli, chic. Let's look at some other ways to spell the E sound. The next one is I, E. It is used in words like peace, niece, chief, believe, achieve. I don't believe I've met the chief's niece. Note that with some of these words, a silent E is used at the end of the syllable. Eight, E, I. You may have heard the old rhyme, I before E except after C. Well, here is where it applies, but it doesn't apply everywhere. We often switch the positions of the I and E after the letter C. Receive, deceive, ceiling, conceit. But we also do it in other words. Seize, protein. Number nine, EY. Another way to spell the E sound at the end of the words is with EY. Honey, turkey, honey, donkey. The monkey likes honey, but the donkey likes money. Ten, EO. An uncommon spelling for a common word. Few words use EO to spell the E sound. You only have to remember this one. People, people, people. Number eleven, OE. Perhaps the strangest way to spell the E sound is with OE. Luckily this spelling is rarely used. Here are some examples. Phoenix, subpoena. Let's summarize the eleven ways we can spell the E sound in English. Spell it with E, single E, B, he, she, we, me, double E, B, free, free, tree, spree, silent E, these, meme, scene, peat. Spell it with E in another letter. Spell it E, A, the most common of these. Dream, east, leave, reap, please, speak. Spell it I, E, brief, relieve, grief, shriek. Spell it E, I, conceive, ceiling, sees, protein. Spell it E, Y, monkey, money, turkey, honey. Spell it E, O, people. Spell it O, E, Phoenix, subpoena. With these there is often a silent E at the end of the syllable, but not always. Spell it with another letter. Spell it with I, pink, scene, machine, pizza. Spell it with Y, pony, pretty, only, city. Hope this helped you in spelling the E sound in English. Be sure to try out our other videos on sounds and spelling. And don't forget to click on the link below for our kids' videos. Check out the description and links below to learn more about our program. Thanks for watching. You can find out more about us on the following websites. ESLgold.com, ESLresources, let's read it again, dot com, kids' books.