English in Use/Hard C and soft C guide

The letter "C" can make two different sounds based on the rules of English pronunciation. It can make the "hard" sound, as in "cake" and "cut", and it can make the "soft" sound as in "cell" and "cinder". This is going to be your guide, an in-depth guide, for how to tell when to use the hard sound, and when to use the soft sound. Despite being a multi-sound letter, the letter "C" is typically quite well-behaved. Much of this information should be quite familiar to you. We as educated, sane, rational adults don't, in the right mind, see a word like "Congress" and expect it to have a soft C, because that's not how CO words are pronounced. "Congress", like billions of other words with a "C" followed by "O", has a hard C, just like the "C" in "cat". In many dictionaries, "C" is the second most common letter for a word to begin with, behind only the letter "S".

Rules

• The sound of the letter "C" depends on the letter that follows it.
• If the letter "C" is followed by "E", "I", or "Y", it makes the soft sound. The soft C sounds like the letter "S" as in "salad". Examples include "cell", "cider", and "Cynthia".
• If the letter "C" is followed by H, then this consonant cluster makes its own sound, as in "chair" and "chill".
• In some words, "CH" makes the hard C sound. Examples include "chorus", "chord", "chasm", and all words starting with "Christ", including the name of a very popular day of the year, Christmas.
• If the letter "C" is followed by "A", "L", "O", "R", or "U", it makes the hard sound. The hard C sounds like the letter "K" as in "king". Examples include "card", "clam", "coat", "crate", and "cut".
• If a word has a "double C", it helps to view this word as a composite. The first "C" is hard, and the second "C" is hard or soft based on the above rules. Words like "accuse" have two hard C's back-to-back, so they have the hard C sound. In the word "accident", the second C is soft because it is followed by "I", and the hard and soft C's together form the "X" sound.