Pronunciation Question
Hello everyone!

I am an ESL student. I was practicing pronunciation - silent letter this week and I have some questions. I wish some of you here could help me understand it.

•The “GH” is not silent when there's an /F/ sound as in the words Tough and Enough?
• Is it the same for the “PH” when there’s an /F/ sound as in “Decipher”?
• The “P”in the word Attempts is silent or pronounced softer?

•Why there are some words that follow the rules but is not silent as for example the word: "Language". Why the "U" after "G" is not silent in that word?

Thank you so much in advance.
Have a wonderful day! :)

Question

Pronunciation Question
Hello everyone!

I am an ESL student. I was practicing pronunciation - silent letter this week and I have some questions. I wish some of you here could help  me understand it.

•The “GH” is not silent when there's an /F/ sound as in the words Tough and Enough? 
• Is it the same for the “PH” when there’s an /F/ sound as in “Decipher”?
• The “P”in the word Attempts is silent or pronounced softer?

•Why there are some words that follow the rules but is not silent as for example the word: "Language". Why the "U" after "G" is not silent in that word?

Thank you so much in advance. 
Have a wonderful day! :)

Answer

You are right: sometimes "gh" is silent, sometimes /f/ and sometimes /g/ e.g. ghost

"ph" is always /f/

In "attempts", the /p/ is formed when said clearly but the lips are not released and so the sound is not very distinct. However, you will hear people not say the /p/ sound at all, and this is OK too.

If you spelt "language" "langage", then you would not say the /w/ sound after the /g/.  There are a few words where "gu" is pronounced /gw/ e.g. guava, sanguine.  I don't know if anyone can tell you the reason for this pronunciation.  From a language-learner's point of view, the reason doesn't matter.

Answer

This is a very difficult one to answer as I don't clearly understand the question.

Tough and enough sound like tuff and enuff, but dough sounds like dowe or doe. It's just the weirdness of English.

ph is always pronounced as an F

Telephone, phonetic, phase, phrase.

The u in Language isn't silent but transforms the a so it sounds like langwidge.