In English, a vowel can be silent too. For example, the e vowels in “fate,” “mote,” and “bike” are all silent. Each of these words are pronounced without any final e sound. As you probably already know, the final e vowel marks the previous vowel in each word as long. In addition to the five standard vowels (a, e, i, o, u), English also has one semivowel—the letter y. Notice how the letter y functions as a vowel in the following words: “gypsy,” “crazy,” “syllabus,” and “gym.” Sometimes, the y marks