and _gun_, soft before _e_, _i_, and _y_, as in _gem_, _gin_, and _gyve_,
although it is sometimes hard before _i_ as in _girl_.

_Ch_ is sometimes soft as in _chair_ and _arch_, and sometimes hard as in
_choir_.

_Th_ has two sounds, soft, or surd, as in _thin_ and _death_, and hard, or
sonant, as in _then_ and _smooth_.

_S_ has two sounds, soft, or surd, as in _soft_ and _this_, and hard, or
sonant, as in _has_ and _wise_.

We have, therefore, twenty-six letters with which to express fifty or more
sounds, not counting the digraphs and diphthongs.

Correct pronunciation depends upon three things, correct sounding of the
letters, correct division into syllables, and correct placing of the
accent.

A syllable is the smallest separately articulated, or pronounced, element
in speech, or one of the parts into which speech is broken. It consists of
a vowel alone or accompanied by one or more consonants and separated by
them, or by a pause, from a preceding or following vowel. This division of
words into syllables is indicated in dictionaries by the use of the hyphen
thus: _sub-trac-tion_, _co-or-din-ate_. It will be observed that in the
first of these examples the vowels are all separated by consonants, while
in the second two of them are separated by a pause only.

The English language has the further peculiarity of using _l_ and _n_ as
vowels in syllabication, as in _middle_ (_mid-dl_) and _reck-on_