p silent?

[Unregistered]

hi everybody,
in the word "psychiatrist" is the "p" pronounced or is silent?

what about the "w" in the word "answer"? is it silent?

thank you so much, bye

[rewboss]

The "p" in "psychiatrist" is silent -- native speakers of English have trouble with certain consonant clusters at the beginning of a word: "ps-", "pt-", "kn-" and "x-" (representing two consonants, "ks") are the ones we have most trouble with, and so we pronounce them "s-", "t-", "n-" and "z-" respectively.

The "w" in "answer" is usually silent, but a few speakers do sometimes pronounce it.

[BobK]

One silent letter to watch is the n at the end of 'autumn' and 'column'. This is silent in the 'base' word, but loses its silentness when followed by a vowel in a derived word - 'autumNal', 'columNar', 'columNist' ...

b