This document provides a lesson on the pronunciation rules for the letters 'c' and 'g' in English. It explains that 'c' is pronounced with a soft 's' sound when followed by 'e', 'i', or 'y', and with a hard 'k' sound otherwise. Similarly, 'g' is soft like 'j' when followed by 'e', 'i', or 'y', and hard like 'g' otherwise. There are some exceptions to these rules. The document encourages practicing the pronunciation rules through interactive games.

1. A Pronunciation Lesson
Rita Simons Santiago, Instructor

2. ⚫If the letterfollowing the ‘C’ is ‘E’, ‘I’ or ‘Y’,
the pronunciation is said to be “soft”.
⚫ A soft ‘C’ is pronounced ‘s’ as in cell, city, decision,
receive, license, distance, recently, pronounce, juicy,
cylinder

3. ⚫If the following letter is anything else - including a
space - the pronunciation is termed “hard”.
⚫ A hard ‘C’ is pronounced ‘k’ as in
call, correct, cup, cross, class, rescue, fact, public, panic,
ache

4. ⚫Music Video: Hard and Soft C

5. ⚫If the letter following the ‘G’ is ‘E’, ‘I’ or ‘Y’,
the pronunciation is said to be “soft”.
⚫ A soft ‘G’ is pronounced ‘j’ as in
general, giant, gymnastic, large, energy, intelligible, cha
nging

6. ⚫If the following letter is anything else - including a
space - the pronunciation is termed “hard”.
⚫ A hard ‘G’ is pronounced ‘g’ as in
golf, pig, great, gum, fragrant, grasp, glut, progress

7. The Hard and Soft ‘G’

8. ⚫There area few interesting words that include both
hard and softsounds. Someexamples include:
⚫ success, circulate clearance, bicycle, vacancy, garage
gauge, geography, gigantic, gorgeous

9. ⚫When a ‘hard’ pronunciation is wanted, but the
following letterwould make it ‘soft’, wesometimesadd
‘h’ after ‘c’ (as in ‘architect’) or ‘u’ after ‘g’ (as in
‘guest’). Alternatively, the following letter is doubled
(as in ‘outrigger’).

10. ⚫These rules also explain some difficult spellings.
‘George’ and ‘guest’ and ‘trigger’ could not be spelled
‘Gorge’ or ‘gest’ or ‘triger’ and still retain their
pronunciation.
⚫Also, it can now be seen why ‘sag/rag’ and ‘sage/rage’
are spelled and pronounced theway theyare.

11. ⚫Nothing is easy - so thereare someexceptions to these
rules. These mostly involvegiving ‘hard’ pronunciation
to words where the rule indicates the ‘soft’ sound.
Theseexceptions include:
⚫ gear, get, gelding, give girl gift tiger, celt

12. ⚫Otherexceptionsare foreign words that have been
adopted into the English language, such as:
⚫ gestalt and geisha

13. ⚫For more practicewith thesoftand hard ‘c’ and ‘g,’
visit :
Mixed Hard and Soft ’C’ + ‘G’
Interactive PracticeActivities
Electric Company Games

14. ⚫This majorityof this material (unlessotherwise noted)
can be found in its original formatat:
⚫About.com

15. ⚫Nextweek we’ll look at the ‘G’ following the letter‘N.’