i before e except after c - an English spelling rule
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.พ. 2025
- English spelling is tricky because sometimes words look nothing like they sound. But here's a rule that can help: i before e except after c.
Join Vicki and Jay at a spelling bee, or spelling competition as we call them in the UK. You'll learn when it's useful to apply the rule and when it isn't. You'll also meet our friend Claire from English at home in this funny English lesson.
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At 8:24 I burst into laughter: "The kettle calling the pot black" "American spelling is weird". haha. Thanks for the video!
ve5g9bt1w, I laughed there as well. We're glad you enjoyed this. I wanted to mention that we are starting a new live course with Tom. It focuses on improving your English speaking skills. It's a 5 hour course, spread out over every Monday morning in April, starting April 1. The total for all 5 sessions is only 74.95 Euros. If you think you need to improve your speaking skills, get started by clicking this link. www.simpleenglishvideos.com/assessment-form/. And thanks for watching our videos. - Jay
4:03
Vicki be like: i've always been called "foreigner" here in the US, now since i have my fellow British here, you're the foreigner now. Ha! FOREIGN!
Ha! Yes, it was my little chance to get back at Jay here Juan.
You guys do deserve NOBLE PRIZE in education especially in teaching English.
Wow, thank you so much for the kind words, Javed.
Except when your foreign neighbor Keith received eight counterfeit beige sleighs from feisty caffeinated weightlifters. WEIRD.
Great list of exceptions, Conner. Thanks for the contribution.
Hi all , English has a serious problem with spelling and pronunciation, but no way we have to accept it and make more effort to be a real English speaker .
By the way vicky it wasn't a fair competition, there was a bias against Jay . Jay said it right , I support you my friend Jay.
Ha! Thanks Emad. This is Vicki here and I'm not going to give up my crown without a fight so I disagree with you. Jay, however, says he agrees with you.
I’m an English speaker from the North-Western region of England and where we’re from we say /'gleːʃə/ gl-ay-sh-e.
So ‘cier’ tends to sound like ‘sher’.
Thanks so much for this Joshua. There's so much variation in British English pronunciation (and American) and it's great when people share info like this.
a English speaker? shouldn't you write an English speaker?
@@jacotaco7816 Oops, good shout, I'll correct myself.
English in a sentence. "Follow these rules, exept don't, exept do, exept dont."
Ha! Yes, it can be tricky, Jaden. :-)
How did Vicky hear her say to take the headphones off, if she couldn't hear anything?
Ha! Great question PeanutButterHouse! :-)
Vicki: “Oh yeah, Jay is a foreign.”
Me: HAHAHAHA
:-)
the best English learning TH-cam channel
Thank you so much Sa'eed!
Jay is so naughty at the competition!
Me naughty? This is Jay responding to your comment. I spelled 'neighbor' correctly at least in American English. :-)
@@SimpleEnglishVideos Oh Jay! I would have considered your spelling too!! thank you very much for the videos.. I learn and I also have fun watching them!
All them ugly
Simple English Videos I suppose so
lol yeah
The old general rule that we were taught on the west side of the Pond: I before E, except after C or when sounded like neighbor and weigh. There are still outliers to this rule, but it works for the majority of commonly used words and is a good rule of thumb.
Yes, it's a handy rule to know. Thanks Donald.
Very effective teaching style...
Glad you like it Muhammad. :-)
Poor Jay in this video.
Ah yes. I often give Jay a hard time in our videos Curong. Luckily he doesn't mind.
They should add a second round of the spelling competition, this time evaluated by an American. Jay would gain back the lost point and they could be both equally happy.
Not nice 😠😠😠😠😠😡
You people are awesome... Love from India...
Thanks so much Vijay. Much appreciated.
The ultimate Simple English challenge. Let the game begin!
Ha! Thanks Mollie!
My second year learning English our teacher gave us the only true spelling rule in English: When you learn a word, you need to learn how it's spelled and how it's pronounced, and don't try to make too much of a connection between the two.
The improved rule still has lots of deficiencies (see what I did there?), like the words theist, species, caffeine, deity and many others. In American English there are even more exceptions, like either and homogeneity.
I love your teacher's rule alonamaloh. She sounds like a gem. :-)
Thank you, you are marvelous
You're so welcome Taher. :-)
I am older gentlemen and this helped me so much.. Very very good
Hi Everyone's tough online. We are so pleased this video helped you. Thank you so much for watching.
Yes, you´r right. English spelling is really crazy but wonderfull for me. That´s why I love English. I will look for English spelling books. You make me love English a lot. Thank you very much.
Oh that's great to hear, Cristhian. Enjoying a language is half way to learning it.
2:28 REALLY
My *neighbour* says *being* a *feisty* *atheist* with a heavy *weight* is *neither* *leisurely* nor *weird* , but it does *reinforce* the *heinous* *veil* that we *either* *reign* or *feign* . It shocks me why you would decide to live next to me on a *glacier* when in such *heights* you cannot receive a correctly spelt message unless it was *counterfeit* with *eight* *feisty* *foreign* *conscience* filled bank tellers. I'd get on a *freight* train by now.
Morgan, that's brilliant and so funny. Thank you so much for that. Breaking rules is such a huge part of the English language :-) Thanks for sharing and thanks for watching.
@@SimpleEnglishVideos Oh dont give me the credit i learned copy and paste.
I really injoy this video 😂
We're so glad you enjoyed it Mashael. We had a lot of fun making it.
I think that you've wronged Jay because he's spelt the word neighbor correctly hahaha
thank you guys that was so funny
Hi Haider. This is Vicki and I disagree with you. However Jay agrees. :-)
I really like watching your videos, quite useful information may be found on it. Thank you Vicki and Jay.
So glad you like them. Thanks for writing, Andrii.
Vicky is super cool in this video😍
Hi Lalitha. This is Jay writing back to you. I agree, she's 'super cool', but it's a shame she can't spell properly :-) Thanks for watching.
Thank for you effort !!!
You're very welcome Learn English TV.
Jay: Mission failed. We'll get 'em next time.
Ha! Vicki here PhenomOnline. While I write the scripts, he doesn't stand a chance. :-)
@@SimpleEnglishVideos 😆😆😆
I love your great teaching technics. It's really quite awesome.
That's great to hear Hummed. Thanks for telling us.
techniques
They are adorable 😍
That's so kind of you to say, @DamaryPerez. - Jay
Fantastic and we need more lessons like that🌹🌹
So glad you liked it ورد وريحان . We'll keep working on them. Thanks for watching.
Simple English Videos I will wait more and more ,I am from Jordan and I wish speak English , Thanks
I guessed that Jay was meant to lose, but I was wondering "why exactly?" And then she said "neighbo/ur" And I instantly thought "ooh,...Jay, next time in USA please :v".
Hello Juan, this is Jay writing back to you. Don't you worry, I'll get my chance someday :-) Thanks for writing to us and thanks for watching our video.
Love you guys! I always feel happy after watching one of your videos. Love your teaching method... and your cheekiness, Vicky! Thanks.
Wow! Thanks so much for writing and these kind words Scoobynadou. We have fun making the videos and it's great to hear that others enjoy them too.
You two are a great team and you deserve every single word I wrote. By the way, sorry for the 'y' at the end of your first name, Vicki, I've just realised it's an 'i'. My mistake. I'm looking forward to your next video.
Lots of people spell Vicki with a y scoobynadou and I answer to both so please don't worry about it. I'm just glad you didn't call me by my full name, Victoria, which is very formal. I associate it with screwing up. It was the name teachers and adults would choose to use when I'd done something wrong. Except my ballet teacher. She always call me Victoria, whether I'd performed well or badly. But she was a very stern lady.
Duly noted. I promise not to use your full name. Anyway I think Vicki is a better fit as it rhymes with 'funny', 'cheeky' and 'witty'...
They said "glacier" was "glassier" 😆 [LOL]
The pronunciation of the 'i:' in "believe," is it made by the letters 'i' and 'e'?
That's an accurate observation, @shost902. - Jay
Poor Jay, the wowen tricked him 😂😂😂
That's alright Evgeny. This is Jay writing back to you. I'll get them back some day ;-) Thank you so much for watching.
Very nice, thanks a lot!
So glad you liked it Wilfried. Thanks for writing.
I'm from Brazil. Thanks for this excelent content!
Hello Darius. Nice to meet you and thanks for writing. We love Brazil.
I'm Brazilian and our Portuguese grammar rules is applied almost 99.9% of the time, and that makes me wonder if whoever created any English grammatical rules is laughing or crying for not having almost any use lol, sooo hard to learn since is applied randomly.
Hi Luiz. This is Jay writing back to you. Fortunately, most of the rules apply most of the time, but you are correct, there is a certain randomness particularly with spelling and pronunciation.
I enjoyed this a lot. 😀😄😊😊😊
Glad to hear it. Thanks for writing Arindam.
This is so satisfying to watch😌
:-)
hello.
thanks for a fun & super easy learning.
you two are awesome..😃💖
Jolly Jack, that's so kind of you to say. Thanks for watching our video.
If Vicki heard her tell her to take off her headphones, she can hear.
And can also hear Jay’s answer.
Ha! They must have piped it through another channel. :-)
@@SimpleEnglishVideos 👌
Hi Vicki Hi Jay it's a pleasure to watch your videos they are very good and helpfull
Thank for you effort
I hope you have a great weekend
Thank you so much Aparecido. Thank you for being with us on this journey.
thank you so much...
You're very welcome Santoshi. :-)
It's so hard to know the correct spelling. Your video was very helpful. Jay, don't be sad about the competition. Have a nice weekend.
So glad it was useful Claudia. Thank you. I think we might have to make another video where Jay can get his own back.
Great lesson
Delighted you liked it. Thanks for writing Stanley Man.
I like this😊🙂
:-)
You guys can be my grandparents if you'd like.
Hi Gregory, that's a lovely thought, but I'm afraid so many others have had that idea before that now you'll have to join a long queue on the internet of people who want to adopt us as grandparents. :-)
Jay got robbed haha. Nice.
Ha! Yes, robbed indeed, GamerCainey. :-)
This helped man
I’ve always spelt it neighbor. Literally they autocorrected it to that
So glad it was useful! This is Vicki and I have my spell checker set to American too. I have to change the spellings when 'm writing to my British friends. :-)
In the US the we leave out the final u in words ending in -our, unless the -our sound is pronounced "or" as in four and pour, or "ower" as in flour and hour.
so funny and so interesting! tks !!!
And we're so glad you liked it Flor. Thanks for writing!
"If the word has an 'eee' sound" - I guess that could work. But what about the extra rule that sometimes follows; "Or when it says 'a' as in neighbour or weigh"?
this has been very wierd. i am not a foriegner but this helped me spell. thanks
You did that on purpose right, ParPar? Wierd should be weird and foriegner should be foreigner LOL. Simple English Videos is a channel devoted to helping people learn or improve their English language skills. And many of our subscribers are actually native English speakers from around the world, along with thousands of non-native speakers. Thanks so much for writing to us and thanks for watching our video.
have never sensed this but this is a great info
Here's a joke riddle
"What 3 Letter word inspired the i before e except after c spelling rule?"
Answer: ICE
Good one, Orange.
@@SimpleEnglishVideos Why Thank you
I try
Thank you so much..
You're very welcome. Thanks for watching.
You both are so cute😭
Thanks Bhawya. :-)
It is nice to see you on Saturday.
Ah, so when we publish at 3pm on Friday in the US, it's Saturday for you Nick?
Simple English Videos yes
Thanks for this video Vicky and Jay. Sometimes English is very confusing...Some words I can't say correctly like Worcestershire
Ah yes. Well Jay and I disagree about Worcestershire. :-)
Forfeit ...gr8 example.
OH yes! Another great example. Thanks cyberianmanx1. :-)
@@SimpleEnglishVideos Chow Mein...always a favorite! Reign in those words I say. Thanks folks. Mike. You Rein.
Cool
😎
:-)
English spelling is positively insane! Fortunately for me, I went to school primarily in English and I've seen enough written English to be able to spell with relatively little difficulty. (I'm American and spell "neighbor" without the optional "u," by the way. Lol.) But, even THAT doesn't guarantee a good grasp of English spelling. Note: The alliteration here (guarantee a good grasp) wasn't intentional. It just slipped out. :) Also, don't forget "seizure" and "seize."
Ha! Thanks so much Paul! This is Vicki here are words that I write (like practise when it's a verb) that my American spell checkers keep trying to correct. I am starting to give in now. :-)
I like your videos they are so funny 😂
So glad you like them. We have fun making them too.
love it
:-)
Good video. Greetings from Peru.
So glad you liked it Iran Maria. Good wishes to you in Peru.
May I ask about your story and how did you meet each other ? do you use American accent or British accent at home ?
Hi Iman. Vicki here. Twenty years ago I came to the US for six months and met Jay. He wouldn't let me go home so I am still here. The accents you hear are the accents we speak with all the time at home - so British for me and American for Jay. We are both very bad at copying one another's accent.
Unless pronounced as in “eigh” as in “neighbor” and “weigh.” So many exceptions.
Right Nikki. So many rules in English have so many exceptions :-)
Cool vid. Keep it up
Thank you, Scantily Clad.
You guys are really hyggelige.
Greetings from Denmark.
Thank you Tommy. I've just learnt a Danish word. :-)
There seem to be as many exceptions as the words following the "rule". Why can't we just admit there is no rule and you just have to remember every word's spelling? 😂
Vicki's last answer would've been wrong if this test was hosted in America under supervision of the Trump or as we say in England, FART academic authorities. 😎
Reign is another one
Oh yes! Thanks Joanne. :-)
Hello Jay.. In India too, we spell it neighbour😁😀
Lalitha, this is Jay writing back to you. I wouldn't propose to tell 1 billion citizen of India how to spell, but as you know, I think it should be neighbor :). Thanks for watching.
How come height is pronounced
"h👁t" but weight is pronounced "W8"?
Great question. We have no idea Matthew. :-)
Well Albert Einstein has it wrong twice in his name
i am 6 years old i like this video.
Tsifirah, we are very pleased you like this video. תודה רבה
that's weird if i follow this rule weird is miss spelled .jay your next word is wierd
Ha! Indeed weird is weird! :-)
Sorry Jay, you've been impertinent so Clare punished you! But it's not fair that the judge and the competitor are both British... so the winner is... JAY!
Thank you Marymar. (This is Jay) I'm taking Vicki's crown right now.
Hahahaha.........It's good to see this competition you guys make It's so funny, In particular I did not like the British accent, But your Vicki I like ............ Great job.
Delighted you liked it, Maciano. We had fun making it.
Ur british accents are unique! Sweet like sugar
Thank you so much An.
Good
sir please teach me how to talk with elders.
I like your speaking english and your pronunciation.
Hello Mintu Roy. Can I check I've understood the question? Do you mean how should you address people who are older than you? In American and British English, age does not usually affect the forms we choose. So for example, whether you are younger or older than us, you can simply call us by our names: Vicki and Jay.
JUST SPELL THE BLOODY WORD JAY
T-H-E B-L-O-O-D-Y W-O-R-D
This is what annoys me about English! ‘Remember this rule to help with your grammar, only it doesn’t apply to 1400 words sorry!’
Ha! It can be frustrating we agree, ADhd Betty. But if you modify the rule so it is about eee sounds as we suggest at the end, there will be very few exceptions.
I love Jay and Vicky a lot ... I would like to meet them in person to get their blessings... Would you allow me to meet you my dear mentors.
Hi Pichai. Thank you so much. I fear, that unless you live near Philadelphia, that isn't possible, but I expect we'll have a premiere video at the end of the year where we'll be online when the video is playing so we can connect in real time in the chat.
@@SimpleEnglishVideos I will visit you in Philadelphia for sure..... I love my mentors Vicky and Jay...
Aww you guys are very wholesome, I hope to marry into a relationship as stable as yours one day
who is getting focused to watch this?
Hi Rechild. Simple English Videos is a channel devoted to helping people learn and improve their English. I hope that clears things up for you. Thanks for writing to us and thanks for watching our video.
My auto-correct refuses to type neighbor with an u
Hi Bassam, This is Jay writing to you. Vicki had the same problem in MS Word years ago. But there's a setting that allows you to choose British English. The way to do this varies with the version of Word. In my case, I have office 365 and the directions are:
Choose the Review tab, select Languages, then choose to add an additional editing language. Choose England (United Kingdom). You then either keep English (United States) as the default editing language, remove English (United States) or make English (United Kingdom) the default editing language. I hope that helps.
7:56 Vicki is hearing....
Ha! Maybe I cheated. :-)
Poor jay just lost i didnt know why jay why?
Hi Jinky Glory. This is Jay writing back to you. I lost because those Brits just don't know how to spell things properly. :-)
cool❤
Glad you like it, Eman.
species and seize:
GOTCHA BITCH!
Ha! Yes, there are always exceptions. :-)
Is 'species' a special case, teacher?
Yes, species is one of those exceptions.
Why doesn't this rule apply to eight or height?
I before E, except after C ...... weird.
Yes, well a lot of rules in English can be described as weird - especially when a lot of words don't follow the rule :-)
What a great and incredibly interesting video as always! Thanks a lot you three! *___*
Btw... Vicki - that crown suits you so well! ^___^
May I ask if there's a reason why it is calles "spelling bee"? :O I have to think of "Maya the bee" at the moment, which I loved when I was a small child :D
Hi Stefanie. Great to hear from you. I have no idea why it's called a spelling bee in the US. I wonder if if Jay knows.
Dear Vicki 💕
I have been too curious, so I've asked Professor Google 🙈😅
I came across this website, maybe it's also interesting for you to read? 😮
Lovely greetings from Germany 😊💕
spellingbee.com/origin-term-spelling-bee
Scripps-Howard, the organization that runs the US National Spelling bee has this to say about it:
The word bee, as used in spelling bee, is one of those language
puzzles that has never been satisfactorily accounted for. A fairly old and
widely-used word, it refers to a community social gathering at which friends
and neighbors join together in a single activity (sewing, quilting, barn raising,
etc.) usually to help one person or family.
The earliest known example in print is a spinning bee, in 1769. Other early
occurrences are husking bee (1816), apple bee (1827), and logging bee (1836). Spelling bee is apparently an American term. It first appeared in print in 1875,
but it seems certain that the word was used orally for several years before
that.
Jay
Thank you sooo much Jay for this information and your answer! I came across the website of the organization. Pretty interesting 😮
Spelling bees are a uncommon thing here in Germany 😮
All your videos seem to be very cute to me..
Thanks Samrat. :-)
'Weird'
Its an exception...i don't even know why its a rule😒
Btw im studying Majors in English language 😌
It's weird indeed. :-)
Poor Jay!
It's OK, Melinda. I'll get them back someday :-) (Jay here.)