 How do you spell the F 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. How do you spell the F or F sound in English? Seems like a silly question, doesn't it? There are actually five ways to spell this sound. Five ways? Really? Let's learn them all. We'll start with the easiest ones. The F sound is spelled in a variety of ways. Some use the letter F, some don't. Fill, fill, stuff, tough. Number one, F alone. Like most other consonant sounds, the F sound is commonly written with the letter F alone. The single F occurs in many places, in the beginning, middle, and ends of words. Five, wife, waif, wafer. Single F. Let's look at some examples. Beginning, middle, end. Fox, face, fence, finger, fun. Refer, after, rifle, refuse, awful. If, leaf, surf, shelf, mischief, F alone. For example, face the facts, Mr. Frank. I forgot to fix it myself. The thief left with fifty cents. Five fingers make one fist. The chef finished in first place. Two, another way to spell the F sound is with the double F. The double F occurs at the end and in the middle of words, never at the beginning. Off, offer, sniff, coffin, puff, puffin, staff, buffer, cliff, raffle. For example, little Miss Buffett sat on a tuffet, sniffing her tears away. Along came Jeff Hopper, who made her an offer. They ran off and married that day. But instead of the coffers, he said he would proper. They suffered at supper and play. His waffles were awful, his focus atrocious. It frightened the woman away. Three, silent friends. Once in a while you'll see the letter F next to a silent, unpronounced letter. For example, half, calf, be half, soften, often. Some people pronounce the T here, often. Silent friends. Silent consonants are not to be confused with the silent E, which mainly affects the vowel sounds. Life, knife, safe, chafe. An interesting variation here is double F E as in giraffe and gaffe. Four, spelling without F, pH. An unusual spelling for the F sound is pH. It comes at the beginning, middle and end of words. Beginning, phone, phrase, position, middle, trophy, elephant, alphabet, ending, Ralph, telegraph, photograph. Notice, this one comes at the beginning and end of the word. An interesting variation is sapphire. Notice that there are two P's here followed by an H. Example, Phil and his grandfather Ralph have very different lifestyles. Phil uses a mobile phone. Ralph has a landline. Phil sends email. Ralph used to send telegraphs. Ralph loves geography. Phil studies physics. They both hate going to the pharmacy. Spelling without F, pH. Perhaps the strangest spelling for the F sound is pH. Luckily there are only a few words with this spelling and it comes only at the ends of words. Rough, tough, cough, enough. It's rough and it's tough. Have you had enough? Hope this helped you in spelling the F sound in English. Check out the description and links below to learn more about our program. Thanks for watching. You can find out more on the following websites. eslgold.com Let's read it again.com